Red
by BigPink
Summary: Something evil is killing treeplanters in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, possibly the same predator that Dean narrowly escaped years before. How Grimm will things get before the brothers figure it out? COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One/Deep Blue

**Summary**: Something evil is killing treeplanters in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, possibly the same predator that Dean narrowly escaped years before. How Grimm will things get before the brothers figure it out?

**Rating**: Gen; no pairings, PG-13 due to swearing, gore and themes. Horror/drama; WIP; 1/10 chapters.

**Disclaimer**: Aw, sweet jesus, if I owned any of it, you'd all have free unlimited access to the boys all the time, in every way. Don't you wish I ruled the SPN universe?

**Thanks**: To Lemmypie, who gets as excited by treeplanters as I do (and that's saying something), and Gekizetsu for helping me figure out the BC vs. Washington State treeplanting/logging/environmental protester sub-cultures. But especially to jmm0001 who, despite being hospitalized for an emergency ruptured appendix, managed to read this first chapter not once, but several times. She makes everything I write that much better. For the record, Lemmy and I sharing our treeplanter porn was NOT what caused the whole ER visit thing, okay?

_Walla Walla WA, present day_

At first, Sam thought the problem was Dean's tuna melt.

Sure, Sam didn't like the look of it himself, all oozing and limp and generally in a hyper-melted state on the plate. Two oil-weeping slabs of white bread surrounded by something the diner claimed was coleslaw but looked more like the grainy gray mush that you'd find in a kitchen drain trap.

The food had arrived and Dean had gone that quiet still way a cat went when it saw a sudden movement in the bushes. Was something, really, that quiet intensity, if his face hadn't paled to the anemic green color of hospital walls. Dean was so still that Sam didn't notice for a little while, kept rambling on since Dean wasn't offering up the usual impediments to a verbal purge.

"For onions? Can you believe it? You know, if I came from someplace as out of the way as this," and he wasn't going to say the town's name; Dean's sing-song chant and Sam's ignoring it had become a game as vicious and as imbedded as a staring match, "then I sure as hell would make sure the place was famous for something other than onions."

Sam glanced across the noisy restaurant, glad they'd arrived in time to scoop a booth, backs high enough he didn't have to look over his shoulder to see if anyone had noticed that he'd called up _Poltergeist Central Command_ on his open laptop.

Thank god the job they'd just finished had been quick and smooth; they were between credit card pick ups at the moment, needing to touch base with a Mail Box Express in Seattle for what Dean assured him was their next mint set. Gold cards, he'd hinted. Four hours away from a decent bed and a meal that wasn't nuked into submission.

"Funny that the missionary massacre didn't lead to more ghosts. Wine. They grow grapes here, why aren't their marketing guys playing that up? Onions," he muttered under his breath, knowing that Dean was about a million miles away, hadn't inhaled that nasty tuna melt or the pigswill coleslaw. Not glancing up, just testing, he whispered under his breath, "Walla Walla Washington." Like waving a red flag, just to see if Dean was listening. "So nice they named it twice."

No response was forthcoming, which caused Sam's attention to detach itself from the web site's somewhat unreliable claim that poltergeists couldn't cross thresholds sprinkled with Pop Rocks. All color had drained from Dean's face. He hadn't touched his plate. His head was cocked to one side, alert.

"Dean?" Sam said crisply, vocal equivalent of hitting him upside the head.

Dean glanced at him briefly, expression blank except for the telltale pallor. Shocked, maybe. Listening, certainly, just not to Sam.

Sam snapped the computer shut, took a quick sip of his soda, tried to pick out what had caught Dean's attention from the ambient bub of the room. Only snippets, young men's voices, "Yeah, well, she never-" and "Shoulda, though. Give me a bear any day, this spooks the shit…" and "said it was a wolf, saw the prints, but not like…" and "…fuck, gotta be a cougar, at least…" and "…only her planting bags, just like Hilary. Weird, I tell…" and "…stiffed me one whole section, can't believe the checker thought…" and "…after this season, never workin' for that bunch of assho…"

The agitated conversation was coming from the booth behind them.

Before Sam had a chance to ask, Dean slid from his seat and came to a quick ready stand beside the next-door table. Sam couldn't see their now-silent neighbors, but he had a good angle on Dean, could see him perfectly, could see Dean's composed 'howdy' face, pulled like a bunny from a hat.

"You guys been up the mountain?" Dean asked, hands in pockets, that smile on his face, pasted on like bad wallpaper. "You down from the cut block?"

Coulda been speaking Chinese for all Sam was following. They were at least a few hours from the nearest mountain, and Sam had no idea what a cut block was. Might help if he could see who the hell Dean was talking to. And if Dean was about to start a fight – which was sometimes what the 'howdy' face precipitated – Sam better size up the guy in the other corner.

Slowly, he edged out of the bench and peered into the next booth. Five young men crowded together, looking as though they were roadies for a Grateful Dead tribute tour, hairier than Shaggy and Scooby-Doo combined. Not as laid back though. Lean and hard as Tijuana dogs, alert, sharp eyes, hands frying pan broad, farmyard tough, dirt and grime under nails, some of which were missing. Scratches and welts; bandages and beards.

"Yeah," a tall blond one said. He picked up a fry from his plate, swished it around in ketchup, kept an eye half on Dean. Not really committing to the question, or the very notion of having a conversation.

"Olympic Peninsula? The Quasilit Valley?" Dean prodded.

The big blond one didn't answer, shoved the fry in his mouth, chewed slowly, staring at Dean blandly.

"Yeah," one of the others piped up, maybe wanting to avoid any trouble, face weather red, dreadlocks tied back in a red and white bandana. "On a day off right now," he grinned at one of his friends. "No cash yet, fuckers. Tommy's folks have an onion operation. Hang out at their farm tonight, back on the block tomorrow."

Dean shifted his feet. "Couldn't help but hear – you having some trouble up there?" And the young men, all in dirty t-shirts and Guatemalan chokers and heavy boots looked distinctly uncomfortable, closed up.

"You been?" The blond asked, a little older than the rest maybe. _Tommy_.

Dean shrugged. "Not recently."

Tommy scowled. No one was inviting Dean to sit. Pit bulls meeting each other in the park were friendlier. "Two of our planters took a hike and didn't come back, that's all. They'll turn around once they realize they're not gonna make more money somewhere else. Or maybe not. People are weird. Too hard for those girls, I reckon. Probably waitressing in Yakima," and the others laughed. Except one.

"Not Hilary," he said.

Tommy shrugged. "Probably not her, no. Her third season. Knew her way around a slash, had good technique." Again with the shrug. "Probably didn't like your snoring." Laughs all around. "Why? You lookin' for a shift?"

Dean bounced on the balls of his feet slightly. Sam held tight; there was nothing else to do, really. Trust Dean. "Maybe."

Tommy reached into his canvas sidebag, which was resting on the floor. It was filthy. He drew out a battered card. "Here's the crew boss's Aberdeen office. Usually by May it's way too late to come knocking, but we're down and have contracts to fill. You fast?"

Dean pocketed the card, threw some bills on top of the untouched tuna melt. "Fast enough. We'll be seeing you."

Sam caught up to him at the door, held him back with a grip more forceful than he'd originally planned. "What the hell-"

Dean pulled away, of course, tense and unwilling. "In the car."

"Who the hell were those guys? How do you-"

But Dean was already pushing open the heavy glass and chrome door, not looking back. "I said in the car."

--

_Tacoma, WA, 1997_

Aw, he really didn't want to tell them, he really didn't, but there wasn't going to be any way that both of them would miss the fact that he wasn't coming home every day after class. That he wasn't there to make dinner, or run interference with the landlord, or fetch groceries. Both Sam and John would figure it out pretty damn quick.

The only thing going for him was that Sam was so absorbed by classwork, track and mooning over some girl named Steffi that he might not mind. And Dad? Well, he was so drugged up that it would take awhile for Dean's absence to penetrate. By the time Dad was better, maybe the idea wouldn't seem so crazy, wouldn't seem like Dean was abandoning them.

And maybe John Winchester would take up competitive figure skating.

For maybe the hundredth time, he told himself that Dad would understand. That Dad would want him to earn some money, would want Dean to provide when John himself was in no position to. Man, it sounded so reasonable when you put it that way. But this wasn't a paper route, or bussing some tables or mowing a couple of lawns. This was _going away_, and Dean knew his father wouldn't approve of going away, not ever. Sam was still too young, and John couldn't protect anybody when he was barely cognizant of his room, let alone the world at large. Shit, maybe Dad would still be out of it by the time Dean got back. Best case scenario.

Dean didn't know what to bring; he didn't have much in any case. What had Goodenuff Dave said? Jeans, long underwear, it's still cold up there, you can borrow my old calk boots, you'll have enough fucking money in two weeks to buy your own. Warm jacket, none of that lame grunge wear. The real stuff. Don't show your ID unless it says you're twenty-one, man, cause that's what I told my uncle you were.

Dean wasn't twenty-one, wasn't anywhere near it. _Dad is going to fucking flip_. Dean squared his shoulders, stuffed some plaid shirts, gray Stanfields, wool socks, and several pairs of underwear into a duffle bag. Dad wasn't going to flip because Dean wasn't going to tell Dad. Dad had a leg broken in three places, was coming off an infection that had maybe damaged his heart, and was wired up the wazoo. Dad wouldn't notice if Dean packed it up and hoofed it to the Himalayas.

He hoped.

"Hey," Sam said, surprising Dean but not realizing it. He came into the room on stocking feet, flopped down on the floor and was nose-deep in some book Dean recognized from eighth grade. The cover was familiar, anyway; he'd never read the book.

The apartment was small; Sam slept on a mattress on the floor. _At least he'll have the bed for awhile_.

"Hey," Dean grunted back. So few things. Not any time at all to get them in the bag. No avoiding it, because Sam would have to step up a little. "Hey," he repeated, threw a balled up sock at Sam's furry head. Sam didn't take his attention from the novel, just threw the sock back, missed Dean by a mile. "I'm gonna be gone for a bit."

Sam made a little noise of disgust. "I don't need to hear about whoever she is. Pick up some chocolate milk on the way back."

In some ways, it would be so easy just to go with that. Take the bag and leave; Sam wouldn't notice for at least three days, except for the looming chocolate milk shortage. Piece of cake, unless Dad's condition worsened. But there wasn't much worse than the landlord at the door, almost the middle of the month and still no check. Dad's meds were costing a fucking mint, had drained them dry. There was no choice.

"I'll be at least two weeks." Oh, and that did it.

"What?" Sam's head appeared from the edge of the bed, a fine line between his brows. "What?"

Dean zipped up the bag, heart big. Unpleasantly big, expanding into places it wasn't supposed to be. Dean sat on the bed as Sam scrambled to an uncoordinated sit, legs and arms at wonky angles, uncontrolled as an armload of kindling. "Dave Goodenauer got me a job with his uncle's logging company." The look on Sam's face. Christ on a stick. "Listen, it's two weeks up, weekend down here in Tacoma, then back up. Coupla months worth, start easy, good money." Sam still wasn't saying anything, but Dean could see the cartilage in his throat move.

"But," Sam whispered. Telling the kid that computer had beaten Kasparov had been easier.

Dean shook his head. "There's some food in the cupboard, shit you know how to make. Dad doesn't have much of an appetite anyway. If things get bad," and he bit his lip, "call Pastor Jim." He handed Sam a slender wad of bills, all he had. Maybe fifty bucks. Two weeks. Shit. _Don't spend it all on chocolate milk, Sammy._

That look again. "I'm not calling Pastor Jim. I can take care of Dad."

"He's not a fucking gerbil, Sam," Dean stressed, foregoing the perverse pleasure he usually got from pointing out that Sam had dispatched the one lonely Winchester experiment in pet-ownership in under four days. "If he gets bad, you call."

"What happens when Kilcannon comes back?"

That. That would be tricky. "I'll talk to him before I head out. I'll promise him May and June at the same time. When I get back."

Waiting for the nickel to drop, surprised it wasn't the first thing out his mouth. "And school? What about school?"

Dean didn't have any answer to that, none that Sam would find acceptable, so he just stood up, the room too small and his stupid heart too big and the idea of sweet-talking Kilcannon sucking hard.

Sam's eyes followed him, Scud missile accurate. "You gonna say goodbye to Dad?" He asked, suddenly sharp and small for all that he'd grown this last year, sure of himself in a way Dean never was. A missile.

Dean hefted the bag onto his shoulder, grabbed his lined jean jacket from the doorknob. "You say goodbye for me." Smiled, but it was brutal, trying to do that. Dean cleared his throat. "You'll be okay."

"Yeah," Sam said like it was obvious, flinging himself on Dean's bed, back to the book.

---

_Washington State, present day_

The hills were dry, the color of old gold cords, ruffled with lines of grape and what might be the world-famous onions, but they were a summer treat, apparently, wouldn't be ready for another month. The place needed rain. Sam sat expectantly as the view out the Impala blurred by, mountains to the south, the smell of river and dust coming through a gap in the window. Maybe _I_ need rain, he thought.

Maybe I need Dean to open his mouth and for rain to fall.

Dean drove fast. Not so unusual, but this had the feeling not so much of driving to get new gold cards, as driving to get back to a house where you'd left an empty pot on a red-hot stove. Highway 12 gave way to the I-90 and Dean picked up more speed. Seattle maybe three hours away. They'd been this way before, plenty of times. The northwest coast up ahead, nothing but green and mountain and rainrainrain.

"So, we're in the car…" Sam led, but there wasn't even a tug on the line. He adjusted himself, wondered how long it would be before Dean realized he was starving, lunch all but abandoned at the table. What had he heard back there? What was it about those scruffy shrubs that had provoked this reaction? "That's not the beginning of a joke, in case you're wondering."

Dean scratched his forehead. For once, he hadn't put on music. Was thinking, apparently. Sam watched him take a deep breath. "You remember that time Dad got thrown by a _se'irim_? Busted up his leg?

Wow. That was really not the opening Sam had been expecting. Still, it was what he was dealt, might as well play it. "Uh. Dad got busted up a lot, Dean. Narrow it down for me?"

Dean suddenly became calm, the jittering just flowed out like a released breath. The starting was the hardest for him, Sam knew; if Sam could keep Dean talking, he'd be okay. Over the last year or so, Sam had become pretty good at getting Dean to talk. It usually involved waiting him out.

"We were finishing out the school year in Tacoma. He got an infection, docs thought it might damage his heart." Neither made the obvious joke. "You were maybe thirteen, fourteen."

"Yeah, that's when you quit school." A muscle jumped in Dean's jaw; was that surprise? Sam pressed his lips together. Shit. Keep him talking. "Um, maybe '97?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, '97." Eyes flicked to a road sign. "You remember why I quit?"

"You really hated that algebra teacher. And wasn't that the school where the vice principal phoned Dad once, told him that if you came back, she'd put you in juvy?"

Sam was given an earned grimace. "Yeah, that's the one. Had nothing to do with why I left. Hell, I even kinda liked that school. That student teacher in Mrs. O'Brien's Health and the Human Body class," and Dean shook his head with a smile, "_really_ something…" This could be worse than Dean shutting up altogether, Sam knew. Giving Dean free rein to reminisce about women usually resulted in a long, descriptive – often pornographic – ramble.

"But you left for a different reason?" Sam cut him off. "Something to do with those bushmen back in the diner?"

Just enough of a prod in the right direction, Sam hoped, watching Dean lean back in the seat. "We were so broke. You don't remember, but I was down to my last few bucks, the rent was way past due and Dad was having conversations with the wallpaper."

Had happened a few times over the years, the being flat broke. Occupational hazard of having an occupation with lots of hazards and no paychecks. "Right," Sam said slowly, trying to remember. Suddenly, "Dad was fucking furious when he figured out you'd…" Trailed off, because it seemed so unlikely in retrospect. "I thought the school sent you to some kinda camp."

Pure astonished outrage in that one glance before it returned to the road. "You thought I was on _vacation_?"

No fair, Dean being mad at him for something he'd been told ten years ago. "Dad phoned around, you'd gone to camp, he said."

The fingers on Dean's right hand drummed the steering wheel. He opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head.

"You didn't go to camp?" Sam asked, turning so his back jammed between door and seat, the better to look at Dean, monitor his relative state of pissed-off-ness. "You weren't at camp." Then, suddenly, he remembered something else. "You came back with a cast on your arm."

"Not the point," Dean sidestepped. "Point was, I got a job with Goodenuff Dave at his uncle's logging company. They worked tree farm licenses pulled from one of the big oufits, did some cutting on the Olympic Peninsula." He shook his head again, and Sam didn't immediately recognize the set of the crooked brows and sad mouth. "God, it was not the easiest way to make a buck." He was remembering, but not sharing. Sam didn't know if that was important. "There was trouble up on the mountain."

"What kind of trouble?" Outside, the vineyards had given way to scrub and low pine. Dust smell changing, becoming thicker, more complex.

"Our kind of trouble."

--

_Seattle WA, 1992_

Tanya thought it might break her heart one of these days, but what else was there to do but work her ass off and collect the quarters and crushed bills? One of these days, she'd get a better job, maybe on one of the cruise ships, that'd be nice, head up to Alaska, or down to California.

Tonight was not the night, though. She was stuck here until she saved enough, but it didn't stop her from wishing herself on a boat or a plane to someplace warmer than downtown Seattle when it rained. Fuck, it had rained every single day in March so far. Her feet ached and it was only halfway through a ten-hour split shift. Still a few hours to go. Tanya threw the old terry cloth into the vat of warm water and bleach, snagged a new one from under the counter. The coffee smelled burnt, but no one in this part of town was likely to complain. It wasn't a fucking Starbucks, was it?

The work wasn't going to break her heart, far from it -- she _liked_ waitressing. It was the kids. It was those kids at the far table, and that lone one jammed up at the end of the counter, head in hand. What the fuck were they? Twelve? Thirteen? Any one of them could be her kid brother, Tanya thought despairingly. Laughter, teasing. One with a bruise on his cheek, always one with a bruise. Ragged clothes bought or stolen from the Salvation Army, layers of flannel and army surplus. Hi-tops. Phone numbers and obscenities written on jeans with holes in the knees.

She wiped the counter, checked the time on the clock: still two hours before midnight closing. Decent tips, enough to get good and hammered tonight. Tobi had phoned earlier: Bikini Kill was playing an underground club, let's go, let's go. Not any legal venue, just some warehouse, way better than the college joints along Pioneer Square; it was getting harder to avoid rabid music reporters now that _Nevermind_ had ripped the lid right off this city. Maybe a good night ahead and a perfect day tomorrow: wake up late and hungover, go down to Pike Place, maybe get a few salmon steaks, no work tomorrow, Sheila was on, not her.

Gathering together a splayed _Seattle PI_, the sports section long gone, crossword half finished, Tanya pulled a strand of pink and black hair and tidied it behind her ear. There'd be a new paper in a few hours, this one was close to garbage. The front page was still miraculously intact, sad faced photo of a kid, screaming the headline: "Missing Boy number 4, A Killer in Our Midst?" She shook her head, snapped her attention to a sudden flurry of laughter from the boys at the table.

Even as she looked, a man outside the shabby restaurant came to the rain-streaked window, face dark, hat pulled low against the weather and the night. Met someone's stare, bent a knuckle and tapped. One of the boys slid out – Anthony, Tanya remembered, imprinted his face, mindful that she'd might have to identify him in a morgue one day, or give his description to police. These boys were all dancing on the edge of oblivion. She couldn't quite bring herself not to care.

The others were quiet for a moment, and Tanya called out, "Hey, anyone want more coffee?"

Coke was demanded, and that cost, but the boss wasn't there and Tanya wasn't going to refuse. Not on a night as cold and miserable as tonight, not when this was the bit of normal they could have. Some slept in an empty warehouse with laughable hoarding; others under the viaduct. Sometimes, one of them said he had a girlfriend and Tanya didn't know what that meant.

This one sitting by himself. Been in two or three times this week, never this late. Always coffee, once a plate of fries. Tanya had figured out that he wasn't with the rent boys, not as far as she could tell. This was the first time she'd seen them all together and somehow he looked different. His eyes weren't as skittish, or as beaten. He didn't jump at loud noises.

She wondered if this was how it started.

Grabbing the coffeepot and the paper, Tanya moved down the counter. She lifted the pot, waited for a brief nod, then poured. Poured herself one too, lit a cigarette, offered, was declined. Quiet. That was quite the shiner.

"I'm Tanya," she said, easy. She was good at conversation, part of the reason her tips were so fucking great. "Haven't seen you around."

A little shrug, economical, no wasted energy. Shit, this kid was _starving_. "Listen, I can't eat the crap food they serve here, but I get one free meal per shift." She plucked the menu from the chrome holder and held it out to him. "What'll it be?"

He took a deep swallow, but didn't look at the menu. His hair had grown out from a short cut; you might be able to measure the length of time he'd been away from adult care from that alone. His freckles were stark against skin too pale and he didn't look uncared for as much as wild and determined. "Burger. Fries." He smiled, and it wasn't guarded, it was _genuine_, and Tanya's heart gave a little bump. "To go, maybe?"

If this kid tried to pick her up, she didn't know what she'd say. Like he was dipped in fucking honey and left for wasps. "To go? Sure thing, sweetheart." _All of thirteen, maybe, you pervert._ As she was writing it up, she glanced back at him. She nodded at the newspaper she'd put beside him, for a minute hating the headline that was staring him in the face, daring him to not feel afraid of where he'd found himself. "The crossword's only half-done."

He raised one eyebrow, telling her crosswords were the last thing on his mind. One minute a kid, next on the prowl. They grew up young, true, but this was ridiculous. She'd still been playing with skipping ropes at his age.

"How'd you get that?" She gestured to the black and purple bruise on his cheekbone and under his eye. Questions like that weren't rude around here.

He shook his head, a Feed the World kid with attitude to spare. "Broke into a car. Got caught."

Tanya thought he might be telling the truth.

She slipped the order onto the passbar, hoped that Julio wouldn't ask any questions about a staff meal slip when he knew she didn't eat barnyard, turned her back on the kid long enough that he picked up the paper. She moved behind the cash as a couple of regulars paid up, but she watched him out of the corner of her eye.

Not with the rent boys, not yet. But hungry and on the street, and it was anybody's guess as to when his luck ran out trying to steal cars. Around here, the only cars worth breaking into belonged to drug dealers and those assholes weren't likely to call the cops when they found a kid under the dash twisting two wires together or prying out the tape deck. They were likely to kill him.

She watched as he threw the paper to one side, bored. Then, a little bit of her died and she knew that she needed to get out of this town, out of this part of it, where she was witness to these sorts of slow deaths.

Because as soon as the kid looked away, as soon as he slid his glance to the chattering group of rent boys at the booth, Tanya saw the change. Something in his round green eyes shifted to…Tanya didn't know what it was, not exactly, but the confidence, the smooth charm, the fucking _sexiness_ of this kid fled. He saw his future and it scared him. Not beaten, not by a long shot, but scared.

Caught her looking, and blinked once. "How 'bout I bring you a burger and fries now, and get you another to go when you're done?" she suggested, because there was no telling who he was feeding at home. If he had a home. His jacket was too light for this weather, was soaked through. You're going out with Tobi tonight, she told herself. You're not bringing home a stray. _I gotta get a new job_.

The kid agreed to that, a flash of thanks, and he looked young again. Too young for what he was contemplating. But Tanya knew. Kids didn't hang out at this diner at this time of night because it was fun. They came here to work and he was standing at the edge of his known universe, unsure.

This place was going to break her heart, right enough. And this kid, too young and too old, was going to be the one to do it.

--

_Washington State, present day_

"Well, that's how it started, anyway, me getting that job," Dean explained, knowing that he was going to fuck this up; too many things he didn't want to talk about and too many things he didn't know and too many things he didn't remember, couldn't remember – hell, maybe didn't _want_ to remember – and Sam would see every fabrication and gap.

And that _wasn't_ where it had started, was it? It hadn't been the mountainside, it had been a Seattle diner. Dean prayed that Sam wouldn't notice, wouldn't _ask_.

But Sam always had questions. "You could get a job, just like that?" Sam's brows quirked together, but he looked genuinely interested, not like when he'd been fourteen and only thinking of chess, girls and chocolate milk.

"Well, Goodenuff Dave spoke up for me, and it was his uncle's crew, so, yeah." This would be easier if he didn't look at Sam, for so many different reasons. Pine now, and sudden roadside stops and gasoline and donuts. "I went logging for the money, Sam, I wasn't looking for any weird shit."

Sam was silent. "Wow, so you just left us on purpose?" Nothing of accusation in it, more wonderment than anything, but it wouldn't take Sam long to remember his own leaving and how he'd been made to pay and pay. Which would bring him to the question: why hadn't Dean?

Nip that in the proverbial bud. "We needed the money." That was the only thing that had mattered. It was different. It didn't feel different.

But Sam seemed okay with it, more awestruck than anything. "So, what was up there?"

Jesus, how to explain something all shadow and danger and need? "In the Quasilit Valley, at that time, we were logging old growth. Thick, like," held up a hand and made it a fist, not finding the words to describe how complex and dark and ancient those woods had been. "The cut block was up the Valley, and across the way, they were planting."

"Those guys in the restaurant…they're planters, not loggers."

Great, Sam was following along at home. Good. Made things easier. "Right. Don't mix much, the loggers and the planters. Both usually contracted out by the same multinational, but don't always see eye to eye. One day, you see the planters with the protestors, next day they're on the mountain." Oil and vinegar, the cultures of loggers and treeplanters. "The planters get called in maybe a year or two after a clearcut. Make what they call a New Forest. Twenty, thirty years on, it's ready for harvest."

Sam was silent. Expectant, and always so fast. Waiting him out. Shit, Sam had his number; Dean hated silences.

"And something was picking off the planters. Almost all loggers are men, but the treeplanters aren't. So you get girls off in the slash, bags full of seedlings, nothing to protect themselves with but a shovel."

The loggers had chainsaws and axes and heavy equipment, loaders and cables and trucks. Their camps were five star luxury resorts compared to treeplanter camps.

"What was it? Did you find out?"

"If it'd had been a bear, or a cougar, or anything else, we'd have seen the signs. But all we ever found were wolf tracks. And some human tracks. Bare foot." Up there, when all of them, loggers and planters both, wore heavy spiked boots.

Dean took his concentration from the road for a minute, ignored the twinge his stomach gave as he glimpsed the first roadside sign for a wagon selling salmon burgers. Shit, he was hungry. Sam stared at him, his dark eyes somber and level. "But not a wolf?" he asked gently.

Dean shook his head, turned back to the racing ribbon of white as it startled from the dark asphalt. Clouds moved in. Rain. About time. Thought that as the first fat drop splatted against the windshield like an unlucky bird. "Too big for starters. But –" and here came the hard part, "…I don't think….listen, it wasn't a werewolf." He stared at Sam. "I know werewolves."

Sam bit his lower lip. "Back then? What the hell did you know about werewolves?"

"Give me some credit, Sam." And was suddenly heartened to remember that they'd be in range of Seattle radio stations now, some of the best in the country. If it hadn't been raining, it would have been beautiful. But that was the Pacific Northwest all over; rain and fog and cold when it should have been hot, hot when it should have been cold. If it hadn't been for certain memories, Dean would have said he'd liked the place, its wildness and its wackiness.

"So, not a wolf, not a werewolf…"

"Yeah." Dean fiddled with the knob, found something, but didn't turn it up loud. Too hard to think. "Something that could wear both a human and a wolf form."

"Evil? What did it want?"

"What evil always wants, Sam." Dean said that softly, almost under his breath, caught the thin edge of what might be fucking panic, suddenly realized that he was getting into the ring with this thing for the third time, and that could either be _the charm_ or it could be _out_. He could tell Sam about the second time, that second encounter, but he couldn't tell Sam about the first time. No way in hell. Hard enough to tell him what had happened at eighteen, when he'd left Sam alone with Dad and gone into the bush.

First time? No fucking way, not ever.

And _this_ time, this lucky or fatal third time, he was dragging Sam with him. This time, he reminded himself, you're not going in unprepared. You're all grown up and have been fighting fucked-up things for years. _You are ready for this Winchester._

Shit, when was the last time he'd needed to give himself a pep talk?

Dean shook his head at these thoughts, knew that Sam's alarm bells were probably going off like crazy, knew that Dean wasn't giving him the straight goods. "Five treeplanters went missing, Sam. Never found them."

"You get a look at it, whatever it was?"

Oh, and how to explain? His mouth was swimming, and he swallowed hard. "Hell, it took a fucking _shine_ to me, Sam, got real conversational. Was one of the loggers, Ludovic, I think his name was, but who the hell knows if that was right. It wasn't human, and it wasn't a wolf, and it was both, kinda. Neither." Goddamn, he sounded like a scared amateur who didn't know Springheel Jack from Wolfman Jack.

"Never caught it," he went on, trying for the same tone he'd have if he'd missed a pool shot, or had been blown off by some girl in a bar. Failed miserably. "I…you know, I was able to _confront_ it, but that was all. Ludovic got spooked, maybe, getting his ass dragged out into the light."

_Right, Ludovic was spooked, that's it_.

Sam was silent, and Dean knew all that meant was he was connecting the dots, would figure out the picture.

"Did it threaten you?" Dean heard Sam shift in the seat, but he wasn't going to look at him. "Is it…" Sam ran out of steam then, but it was only to regroup, put together his case. He was close enough, now, Sam was, close enough to see what Dean wasn't saying. "Is it after you, Dean?"

Dean sometimes wished his brother wasn't so smart. He pressed his lips together, knew that was its own kind of answer. "You gonna need a tent, for starters. And don't think that one in the back will do you in the bush."

Amazing, how well he knew his brother, knew exactly how to distract him.

"Me? Bush?" And Sam laughed shortly, unamused, because it must have sounded ridiculous. "I don't know anything about logging."

Might as well just tell him. Dean turned, tried on a smile and thank god it didn't break his face. "You're not going logging, you pansy-assed stork. Fuck, think I'd put a chain saw in those book-lovin' hands? Shit. No, _I'm_ going logging. We'll go to Seattle, pick up the new cards, buy some decent gear, rent some satellite phones. Head off down to Aberdeen. I'll hook up with Goodenuff, if he's still around, get on a crew if they're hiring. You? You're going planting."

Another glance, just to see what mess Sam was making on the front seat. Mouth open, eyes a little wide: mouth closed, eyes blinked. Mouth open again. Nothing came out for a minute. Would have been funny, under different circumstances. "Me?"

Sam probably thought treeplanting involved prancing around a grassy hillside like Johnny Fucking Appleseed, a little sack slung around his shoulder, scattering seeds and singing.

"Yeah, you. You saw the guys in Walla Walla," and oh, how he loved saying that idiotic name, half the joy coming from the way Sam's mouth twitched whenever he said it. Dean took his pleasures where they lay. "Do you think I'd fit in with those dope-smoking, dreadlocked, hacky-sack playing vegans? Shit, you'll think you're back in Stanford," for maybe thirty seconds.

Slowly, Sam turned up the song on the station. Nirvana, of course.

_With the lights out it's less dangerous/Here we are now_/_Entertain us_.

Damn, and Dean had always hated that song, and Sam knew it.

--

TBC

--


	2. Fresh Meat

**_Red_ - **Chapter Two/Fresh Meat

**Summary**: Something evil is killing treeplanters in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, possibly the same predator that Dean narrowly escaped years before. How Grimm will things get before the brothers figure it out?

**Rating:** Gen, PG-13 due to swearing, blood-letting, logging accidents and malevolent sexual undercurrents. WIP, will be 10 chapters. Horror/drama.

**Don't touch the monkey:** Hey, Eric, you're really busy with the new season and all. Just move along. I promise I won't hurt any of them…much.

**A Short Word from BigPink on the Beta Process:** Now that I've discovered the iChat video function on my new laptop, I yak to Lemmypie incessantly, much to our families' consternation. We talk about all sorts of things, but one great thing has been fleshing out this story. She's great with the ideas, and with teasing even more nonsense from my dysfunctional brain. The ever-vigilant JM bats clean-up, makes sure that in my excitement I haven't forgotten that Dean's not wearing any pants or that Sam's wandered off without paying the bill. And she tells me the proper spelling for tough words like 'gotcha' and 'Marlboro'.

--

_Aberdeen, WA, present day_

She wasn't an office worker, she was a treeplanter. Sam saw that plainly and right away.

Technically, she was in an office and she appeared to be working behind the counter, but she was no more a secretary than Sam was a Mexican wrestler.

She ducked under the counter in a quest for Sam's requested forms, annoyed maybe; it was near six o'clock by the time they made Aberdeen, must be close to quitting time. A thick braid of sleek red hair fell over her shoulder like a bright animal, ferret-like, as though it would have a name and eat from her hand. Sam remembered Jess once saying hair that color must come from a bottle, because nothing in nature was like it except maybe the inside of a ripe papaya. This girl didn't look like she'd put any kind of chemical anywhere near herself, so unless it was…what was that stuff called – right, _henna_ – then it had to be natural.

She had the easy grace of a yoga instructor, but powerful, built like fighting dog, all muscle and bone. Her high-bridged nose reminded Sam of a Greek statue, the kind he'd studied in that useless art history course he'd taken. Calypso, a caryatid, winged Nike; something like that. The statue's serenity was somewhat marred by the sloe dance under sharp red brows.

Maybe she sensed his attention, and maybe she didn't. She stopped fiddling with her braid and slapped the forms down in front of him. Her smile was incremental but encouraging.

"Fill it out down to here," and she pointed to a big blank box that said 'for office use only', which basically was the place some supervisor would write down whether or not Sam came across as a walking talking moron. She licked her lips, maybe slightly intrigued by Sam, maybe not. "Today is your lucky day," she said like she wasn't sure it was the thing to bring up.

"How so?" Sam asked automatically, fishing for a pen from his bulging knapsack, taking so long the girl leaned over the counter and poked him on the back with the tip of the ballpoint she held in her hand.

"Here," she said, giving him the pen. It had the company logo on it, a hand with a stylized tree. "Just that we're down a few planters, and today's the break and we were about to close up for the day, go back to the bush short-handed. Your timing is…" and Sam stood up, tried to put 'eager' back into his arsenal. "Great."

"Um," and Sam flashed the battered card the Grateful Dead roadie had given Dean in the Walla Walla diner. "This guy. Said I should stop by?"

The girl took the card, brought it close to her Grecian nose. "Tommy? Tall blond guy, little hair here," and she gestured to her chin.

"Onion farm, Walla Walla," Sam supplied, starting to fill out the form, but got stuck on the first line, which was where he was supposed to write his name.

"That's him," she agreed. Her mouth was wide, filled with Chiclet teeth. Sam smiled back, liking her cautious dark voice and her quiet amusement. Young and serious.

"Ruby," and she nodded, glancing obviously down at his form.

"Sam," and that's what he wrote on the line.

"If Tommy gave you the card, he must have thought you could handle it," she said, but she wasn't watching him anymore, she was tidying some papers onto the shelf behind her, ignoring a ringing phone. As he looked up, she came out from behind the counter, crossed the waiting area filled with cardboard boxes and a dead potted plant to rummage in a box of map pins under the bulletin board.

"He actually gave my brother the card," Sam admitted, watching as she stuck a red-headed pin into a topographical map on the wall. It joined others bristling in a cluster. He had no idea what region he was looking at. _What_ he was looking at.

Ruby turned, brows raised. "You've never been planting before?"

Sam shook his head. Dean always warned him about telling the truth, but he obviously hadn't been born with the same instincts Sam had. Another bright smile and Ruby shook her head.

"That's okay. You done much sports, marathons, any hard labor?"

Sam thought about telling the truth again. Meet her partway, maybe.

"Ran a lot in school. Varsity track. Distance." The kind of hard labor he and Dean had been doing the last year was probably best left unsaid.

"Okay, when you go in to talk to the boss? Mention the track. Marathons," and she shook her head, going back to the board and jabbing a pin in. "The boss likes marathon runners."

He nodded. "Should I talk about the ecology courses I took?"

"Fuck no." Shook her head emphatically. "Not a word. When he asks you why you're doing this, tell him it's the money. When he comes back to the question – and he will – tell him it's for the money. Tell him you need enough to put you through next semester. Tell him that you were a competitive asshole when you were running distance. Do not," and she stopped for emphasis, turning away from the board, "tell him you're saving the planet or love nature or want to make art about the wilderness."

"Even if it's true?" he grinned, still working on the form. _I could tell him that I'm hunting down whatever wolf's picking off your crew workers._ That was the truth, but it also brought him back to Dean's anxiety, his reluctance to show fear, the long drive here with Dean dodging and weaving like a pro receiver running toward the end zone. Something evil, and Dean alone, out of his element, eighteen years old. Not knowing what he'd been facing, maybe, and unwilling to admit it now. More than that, though, because Sam could have sworn that Dean was _scared_, and that was rare, was a perfectly good indicator of how bad this 'wolf' was going to be.

_Smarten up, pay attention_.

He felt Ruby's eyes on him as he walked across the crammed outer office into the supervisor's dingy room, where he was grilled for half an hour on his motivation, his experience, and his general health. In the end, Sam assumed they were pretty desperate, because the supervisor rose, shook Sam's hand – Sam winced at how thick the calluses were on the hard palm – and told him to come back bright and early the next morning, when a truck would pick them up and take them to the camp; they'd set up and be on the block by ten, get in most of a day.

Then the supervisor told Sam he'd be making seventeen cents a tree, because the terrain was pretty steep, no beach plant this, and that daily camp fees were twenty-two dollars a day, which included three squares and shower rights. He had his gear, right? Tent, bags, shovels and calk boots, Sam told him. Leather gloves, gaiters, bama socks, silviculture liners. Now just showing off.

Duct tape?

Ah, no, not that. The supervisor grinned and stood up. "See you tomorrow. Five o'clock in the morning, or you find your own ride up."

Ruby was still there. Waiting, Sam thought. She met Sam's stare, smirked. "Gotcha on the duct tape, didn't he?"

Sam ducked his head, but he was grinning. It was exciting in some ways, in spite of or maybe because of the danger: Dean had been trying not to laugh as they'd picked up gear in Seattle, seeing Sam's continuous expression of disbelief – why do I need spiked boots, Dean? How much rainwear can a body wear at one time? – but now the idea of being outside and just pushing himself didn't sound so bad. Hell, just mention the words 'marathon' and 'competition' and he felt like going there _now_. There was even the added incentive of being able to make a shitload of money in very little time.

And if there was an evil wolf spirit involved, especially if it meant protecting treeplanters like Ruby? Well, how awful could it be?

"Hey," Ruby said, picking up Sam's huge backpack and handing it to him, "the hardware store's just down the block. You could pick up the tape there and we could grab something to eat at Minerva's."

"Minerva's?" Oh, Sam knew what kind of dinner he was going to have tonight. Tempeh burger, sweet potato fries, and some sort of soy beverage. "Let me phone my brother, see if he's had any luck." He caught the edge of disappointment in Ruby's down-turned mouth. "He's supposed to meet me for dinner."

--

_Quasilit Valley WA, 1997_

Dean thought about sleeping and dying. He thought about both a lot. Sleeping a little bit more, maybe. Given two minutes, he'd just lie down, right there, between a nurse log and a tree that was taller and older than any European cathedral, lie down in fifteen different kinds of moss and just sleep. That led invariably to thoughts of death, because these trees were coming down. Instead, he watched as the plume of bright sawdust kicked back from Goodenuff Dave's chainsaw like he'd hit an artery.

He'd never been so sore in his life and the weight of this chainsaw was going to fucking kill him. A spasm crossed his shoulders and he grimaced, but he made sure the ear protectors were in place under his hardhat, hefted the Husqvarna – a medium weight one with only a forty-inch bar, they'd laughed at that, too – and followed Dave up the self-made steps they'd made in the tree trunk. Dave cut another window square for the next spring board, the one that would get them well up on the root swell, to where the Doug fir's shaft rose a hundred feet – shit, more – without a single branch until you hit one fifty. Dean had already seen one guy at the top of one of these suckers, standing there two hundred feet up even after topping it. That topped tree was now the spar, anchoring the cable that ran down the mountainside; cut logs were dragged along by the cable, crashing through underbrush down to the roadside where they could be bucked.

What a lot of fucking work for a single tree, Dean thought, but then did the math. Board feet. How many tens of thousands of dollars was this single tree worth? Completely staggering. Mr. Janzen would have been proud of his ability to come up with the sum so quickly, except that Mr. Janzen had failed him last semester, hated his guts, and would never see him again.

The rain sheeted down, and Dean could see his breath for all that it was May. Dave had loaned him a couple of down vests, some extra socks. Loaned him the Kevlar pants held up by the requisite red suspenders, along with the field vest, the heavy belt containing a first aid kit, air horn, chainsaw parts, extra compression bandages. What a lot of shit to haul around. They stayed in a cheap motel during the nights, and at least Dean could usually wash out the socks before he fell unconscious into bed. His feet were what bothered him the most. They soaked in a brine of sweat and wool and rainwater almost all the time.

Goodenuff's uncle had loaned him the saw, had done it with a reluctant grin. Said that Dean could take his pick of the jobs, which one he wanted to be trained for. High riggers, maybe, Dave had joked, pointing up through the rain to the top of the spar. Fuck, that guy two hundred feet up standing on a fucking swaying post? No fucking way. Better be a faller then, Goodenuff's uncle had suggested. They make the most, once they're good at it.

The reason for that, Dean discovered, was that fallers were most likely dead if they were bad at it. "When you're a faller, death always comes from above," Uncle Goodenuff had said, handing Dean the chainsaw. "This isn't a job you want to bullshit your way into, son."

Dean had spent most of the last week furtively glancing up every five seconds or so, rain hitting him in the face like an insult, watching the treetops dance and spin, trying to figure out which way the tree was going to fall. Every shimmy of the saw made the branches move; every change in wind direction and speed mattered. He watched carefully for widow-makers, the dead branches that fell loose when the tree started to go. They came down like thunderbolts, some the size of small trees, would spear you right through if they hit you. He felt like a gopher on a hawk-covered plain.

That much weight falling that fast didn't allow for mistakes.

He had bruises in places he didn't think he could get bruises; he had cuts from bushwhacking through the slash with the chainsaw, and two days ago he'd been so hungover that he'd had to go puke in the bushes.

The other guys had laughed; they'd been the ones to get him drunk the night before. Goodenuff was exempt; his uncle owned the crew and the equipment and the contract. Dean, on the other hand, was fair game, was green as they came.

_It's work_, he kept telling himself.

_It's money_, he told himself when one of the experienced fallers filled his boot with urine during the lunch break while Dean aired out his feet.

_Two hundred bucks a day to start_, he whispered under his breath with every wild swipe of underbrush that drew blood as he moved through a light-filled spot created by a fallen tree, nature busy filling in the vacuum.

Started to feel good about what he was doing by the fifth day, when Dave directed him to go up the springboards first. Dean figured out what way he wanted the Douglas fir to go, sliced the Humboldt undercut from the trunk, hammered wedges into his cut to force something that weighed more than a house to fall exactly where it wouldn't kill any of the assholes working with him. He worked it out in advance, hoping for wind and lean and luck to converge in the right combination; Uncle Goodenuff said he had good tree sense and that unteachable ability of 'finding time' when things were moving fast – to assess, plan, react.

_Food on the table_, this when the foreman sewed up the cut on Dean's upper arm when he hadn't been nimble enough to avoid a chip of wood flung from the saw. Shit, he hadn't even _seen_ it, let alone felt it.

_Chocolate milk, stupid comic books, new running shoes, Kilcannon's fucking rent, dozens of brown plastic prescription pill bottles with John Winchester's name typed on the labels, the crinkle of the paper bag as the pharmacist wraps them up._

_God help me_, he thought the first time he caught sight of Ludovic in the cookhouse tent, his heart pretty much stopped cold, everything slowing – time, blood, burgeoning pride. _God help me_, was his _only_ thought and it did him no good at all.

--

_Aberdeen WA, present day_

As predicted, Minerva's had four different types of soy milk, a multitude of salad greens Sam had never heard of, not even having lived in California for as long as he had, and ice cream made with tofu, gravy made with miso. Wheatgrass smoothies. That's what he ordered, waiting for Dean to find the place. Hard to miss, but Dean would probably stand outside for ten minutes working out whether it was a restaurant or a medieval apothecary.

The dried flowers and a dreamcatcher the size of a truck tire hanging in the window were the giveaways. Dogbowl outside for customers' canine friends.

His non-canine friend didn't look at the menu board before she ordered a non-wheat, non dairy pizza, and then unfolded a map onto the table.

"So, the cut block they're currently logging is here," and she pointed to one side of valley, slightly difficult to make out from the undulating lines and numbers and varying degrees of green-ness. The topographical map mostly concerned elevation -- which averaged over 2200 feet above sea level, so hell, _up there_. "The crew is selectively logging a second growth forest, but the Western Wild Association's taken pictures of some spotted owls in the area."

Sam shook his head, took a sip of the smoothie, felt healthier right then, sitting there, than he had in a long time. "Why would that matter?"

Ruby's look told Sam that he really ought not to ask such inane questions. "Well, they're protected for starters. Usually only nest in old growth, and there's a stand at the southwest quadrant of the watershed. If the owls are nesting in the valley, the logging operation will get shut down. That's why the WWA's protestors set up camp at the entrance of north shore access road." Her finger traced a dotted line; the legend identified dotted lines as 'logging access only'. Sam presumed that meant 'rough as all hell'. "We're replanting the south slope, the block here," and tapped a large gray-shaded square.

"It's pretty high up," Sam said.

"Pretty steep," she conceded, nodding. The lines were packed together on the map; elevation escalating quickly. "You'll have a mixed bag: spruce, Lodgepole pine, Douglas fir. We don't stack 'em in the bag, so don't even try it. Against company policy. You'll have to cut the tags at the cache…"

She went on, but Sam's attention wandered off, not only because he had no idea what she was talking about, but because Dean was standing just behind her, elbows leaned against the back of the long bench she sat on. He was listening intently, but his mouth twitched in amusement around that mouthful of canary feathers. Dean met Sam's stare, and Ruby stopped, turned around.

"Have you got to the spotted owls yet?" he asked, coming around the bank and pulling up a chair. "What the hell is that?" and pointed to the thick green drink Sam held. "Don't," when Sam opened his mouth to explain.

Dean leaned back in his chair; the restaurant wasn't busy, only a couple of tables were occupied. Several customers scanned the bookshelves in the corner near the vitamin supply shop. A multi-purpose kind of place; the front cash also had fresh baked goods and amethyst crystals for sale.

"Hey," Dean called to a young guy only differentiated from the rest of the clientele by a red apron. "Can I get a menu?"

The guy gestured to the chalkboard above the bookshelves.

Sam thought he heard Dean moan. The waiter came over, wiped his hands against his thighs. "Something to drink?"

"Beer?" Dean replied, but his question was small and hopeless.

"Sure," the waiter said, perking up. "We got wheat beer, another that's made with pine needles, it's, um, yeah, it's different, and an organic pale ale that's really hoppy. You know," and he smacked his lips, which might have meant tart, or bitter, or something. "And hard cider."

Dean was still again, but not the cat-sees-bird-in-bush quiet, more the maybe-aliens-will-abduct-me-if-I'm-lucky silence. His sigh, when it came, was resigned. "I'll have the wheat one. What's a tempeh burger? Is that with mushrooms and bacon or something?"

"Uh, Dean," Sam interceded. "You wouldn't like it."

"Well, I'm not getting tofu nuggets with miso gravy."

"The salmon burger's good," Ruby said, moving the map, but Dean stopped her, held the map in place. It changed the mood a little, that quick movement.

Ruby stared at him, and Dean stared back. He wanted to see the map.

"Salmon burger it is," Dean agreed, but without a smile, still staring at Ruby for one more second than was strictly necessary.

Sam blinked. As far as he knew, the only kind of fish Dean liked came from a can. Maybe he didn't know salmon was a kind of fish, though that would be a monumental lapse, even for Dean.

"Salad, or sweet potato fries?" The pen hovered over the pad.

Dean's face screwed up as though the waiter had just asked him if he wanted a side of cold monkey shit.

"Lots of fiber in the sweet potato," the waiter continued, like that was an incentive.

"What? Do I look like I'm going to knit a sweater? What the hell do I want fiber for?"

Ruby opened her mouth, about to tell him the many and manifold benefits of a high-fiber diet, but if Dean heard the word 'regular' come from those lips, Sam was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to break up the fight.

Sam realized that this meal was going to be all about him interceding. "He'll take the fries. Same for me," and prayed the waiter would just beat a hasty retreat and not offer them the miso gravy option.

"Dean, this is Ruby," but Dean's attention was now entirely on the map. With a jolt, it occurred to Sam that Dean knew how to read this kind of map, that the lines and numbers spoke to Dean. More than that; he'd been here before, and what were just gradations of color and scale to Sam were far more than that for Dean; it was known territory, perhaps a landscape of horror. Dean hadn't specified what Ludovic had done, had only said the planters – all young women – had never been found.

"This is my brother Dean. He logged this area, about ten years ago."

Ruby's mouth twitched, but Dean was still looking at the map. She pointed with a nail-less finger. In fact, her hands were scratched up, reddened, sore looking in places. "Probably there, right?" and Dean glanced up at her, nodded curtly. Ruby continued. "Replanted your bomb crater my first season out."

Fighting words.

For whatever reason, Dean wasn't in the mood for a knock-down drag-out. He seemed to be pretending she wasn't there, or that she was a particularly dull talking animal.

"You been with them all season?" Dean asked after a long moment.

Ruby lounged against the benchback, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. "This is my third season with them. Pay's fair, good crew." Her voice roughened and it drew both Sam and Dean's attention.

"Tommy said that there'd been some trouble." Sam pitched his voice to soft.

Ruby shrugged. "Melissa and Hilary, not a month ago. Barely started out. Left everything, their tents, and bags. Cloud rolled in, lost sight of them. Never found shit. Both from out of state. They'll show up." If that was supposed to set them at ease, it wasn't working. Luckily, Sam wasn't expecting things to go smoothly up there. They were, after all, looking for whatever had taken the girls, not trying to avoid it.

Her stare slipped to the side, drifted back down to the map. "There," and indicated a ridge that ran between two streams, that traced the top of a mountain down the side of the slope right down to the river that cut the valley into north and south. "That's the back end of the block, where it meets the old growth patch that's still left. The timber scout's been up there, trying to figure out how to best build the road in. Maybe log it next year if the WWA doesn't get the valley protected."

Dean made a noise somewhere between a snort and sigh. "The WWA," he said dismissively. He grinned at Sam, "See? It's always about those little fucking owls."

"It's not just about the owls," Ruby said, heat coming into the husky voice. Oh, time to intercede again and they hadn't even gotten their beers yet. "It's about the whole watershed."

"How'd you make out?" Sam asked Dean quickly, praying that the pint glasses on the waiter's tray were theirs.

Dean took the glass from the tray, eyed it suspiciously before taking a long gulp. It must have tasted beer-like, because he drank half of it before replying. "Well, Dave bought out his uncle five years ago. He's still working the license in Quasilit," and he turned to Ruby, "which you can do indefinitely if you do it right. If someone doesn't put you out of business."

Ruby's mouth was pressed shut, firmly as a granny's purse.

Sam edged his chair forward, just in case he had to jump in between them. "So, are you going to go up?"

Dean's grin had returned, though it seemed tenuous. _He's humoring me_. "Yeah, Dave's a good, remembered me. I don't have to be at the camp until dinnertime tomorrow, though, so I'm sleeping in," and shrugged at Sam. "I'd give you a ride, but you'd miss a day on the block and you don't want to be doing that."

_Thanks a lot asshole_, Sam thought. "What's Dave's set up?"

Dean leaned forward, smiled, and it was entirely for Ruby. "Gotta crew camp this time, no motel. We take the north shore access road; the Impala rides low, so Dave's gonna come down with a company truck, pick me up. Once we've run the WWA's blockade, I'm going to cut down some trees. I'll be across the valley from you. I cut; you plant. Your trees are, what? Fifteen cents apiece? More or less. My trees? A little bit more than that."

"Except if your brother's any good, he'll make more than you in a day." _Aw, jeez, Ruby_, Sam thought, _take it down a notch_. Might as well be prodding a grizzly with a ski pole.

But Dean just smiled slow, that defense Sam recognized completely. "Oh, my brother's plenty good, sweetheart."

And Sam knew, right then, that he wouldn't get a serious conversation out of Dean tonight, that his brother was going to tease him relentlessly about this granola-chomping, Echinacea-popping, spotted-owl loving hippie chick and all the fun Sam was going to have in the planters' tent city in the mountains. While Dean skulked about with a chainsaw in what Sam knew to be the most statistically lethal profession in the country, if you didn't count demon hunting. Or demon hunting while logging. What kind of outrageous odds adequately described _that _risk?

"When will I see you?" Sam asked, suddenly anxious for all he had the satellite phone tucked away in his backpack.

"After tonight? You're up six, down one?" and Dean looked to Ruby for confirmation. She nodded; it seemed to be the usual pattern. "I'll see you on the off day, meet you at the motel here in town."

_Stay in touch_, Dean's eyes clearly said, slid to Ruby, raised his eyebrows and drained his beer and Sam had no idea if that meant, _stay clear of this wingnut_, or _go for it_, or _you're on your own with this one_.

--

_Seattle WA, 1992_

She timed it, because sometimes it was important to measure your humanity in such increments: four minutes, thirty-five seconds. Under five minutes and that plate was practically licked clean. Tanya sure as hell hoped he wouldn't make himself sick, eating that fast. He was the sort of kid who wouldn't want to call attention to that, she was sure, so she didn't hover, didn't stick around that end of the counter.

Maybe that would be enough to keep him on this side of the line, for tonight anyway. A full stomach. Maybe that's all it took. He pushed the last fry into his mouth, barely stopping to wash it down with the glass of chocolate milk she'd brought, surreptitiously pocketed the little containers of mayonnaise and ketchup that had come with the burger. Throw extra into the 'to go' bag, Tanya instructed herself. Maybe one of the chocolate milk cartons. Who was he feeding? His mother – she might be some junkie, unable to feed herself. Or a sibling. Maybe that.

He didn't even push away the plate, just stared at it when he was done, wishing it full again. Don't be sick, she muttered under her breath, told herself it was because she didn't want to be the one to clean it up, but it was so much more than that, too much more, so she couldn't think about it at all.

She left him alone for awhile, mostly because the table of rentboys were calling her over, wanting more Cokes, and she finally had to say no to that, but then Anthony came back, eyes bleak, then shining to laughter as one of the other boys – Lamont, maybe, the kid who looked half-Chinese – said that Anthony had money now, why didn't he get them something to eat? Tanya took their order for two plates of fries as Anthony headed for the bathrooms at the back.

"You done?" Tanya asked the kid at the counter after she'd slapping the order on the pass-through for Julio. Done? Shit, what else was he going to eat, the cutlery?

"Yeah," the kid said. "Thanks, that was great."

"That's Julio for you," but his glance was sliding around again, and she noticed how one hand gripped the edge of the counter. "You want the to go order now?"

He swallowed. "I can't…you know…"

"Fuck it, the food we throw away here. Like I said, I'll put it on my staff meal tab. No worries." He wouldn't refuse, not when he'd taken the first meal. He wanted to, raised his chin a little, met Tanya's stare. Difficult to read right now, masking.

_Take it. Oh please just take it and go._

He nodded, and the hand that had been holding on to the counter's edge relaxed a little, finally fell on his lap. "Yeah. Is there…you know…anything that needs…"

_Oh yeah, the boss would just love that, some underage kid doing my job._

"Nope, you stay put. I need to start a new bag of milk in the serving fridge. You can help me by finishing off what's left in the old bag." So he had another glass of milk, 2 this time, was just bringing it up to his mouth when Anthony came back out, nudged the kid in the back as he passed.

The kid didn't spill the milk, but he turned, carefully set the glass down on the counter. Was halfway to a stand before Tanya grabbed the two plates of fries from the pass-through and hurried over to Anthony. "For god's sake, Anthony, take this thing, watch it, it's hot," and shoved one of the plates at him. Anthony, six inches taller than the counter kid, backed away slowly, pivoted, and took one of the plates.

"Just checking out the fresh meat," he said, meant it to carry. Tanya didn't have to be looking at him to know what color the kid's face had probably gone to. The bell, the bell, Julio, did you have to go out and kill a fucking cow to get the…

DING, and she eyed Anthony and his friends sternly. Goddamnit, when was she supposed to go out and get drunk? She wasn't a social worker or a camp counselor or a den mother and she was all of these things. All for $3.80 an hour, plus tips.

"To go!" Julio shouted, and Tanya pushed Anthony gently on the shoulder.

"Mind yourself," she hissed with a smile. Anthony wasn't listening.

The door opened to the night, the bell above jangling and Pavlovian reflex kicked in: Tanya turned, smiled, nodded to the new customer.

He was at least six foot three, rangy, like the Marlboro Man. Lean, all bone and sinew, silky dark blond hair spangled with rain, a walk like a wild animal. No hesitation, no return of the smile. Pad, pad, pad, right up to the kid at the counter. Was this the car owner, come to continue the beating?

But no, the Marlboro Man sat beside the kid, didn't even look at him, then glanced over at Tanya. And right then, he reminded her of a sound, not an animal or a celebrity. A sound that she'd heard once in that Ginsberg poem – he was a _howl_. All of that in those pitiless slivers of iceblue eyes. _Remember that face, in case you need to get a sketch artist to draw it._ He pointed to the coffeepot on the machine behind the counter.

The cup rattled in the saucer as Tanya poured. She set it down, watched the kid to see what he would do. Was this his dad, maybe, here to haul him off the street? For once she hoped not.

Then, it became something worse, because the howl given form smiled at the kid in_ that way_ and the rent boys started poking each other across the table, throwing dirty looks to the counter.

And Tanya knew this was how it started.

"Hey," she said sharply, and the kid looked to her, and he was begging her without knowing he was doing it, just had it in his eyes, and she could help, could save maybe just one. _Get him the fuck out of here. _"Hey, here's your order. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

He was up like a shot, heading for the door and she stopped him, called him over to the cash machine, opened it, took out twenty bucks, knew she had enough to cover it, say goodbye to the underground club tonight, but she'd wake up with a clear conscience. "Here's your change. Go right home, all right?"

She kept her voice low, but there was a shake in it, and he shook his head to the money. "I'll be okay," he said, and that just made her want to cry.

Along the counter, the lean blond man looked on with more than interest. With avarice. That's a ten dollar word she'd learned at Evergreen College. _Don't make a scene with the money, girl. _ She put the bill back into the tray, slammed it shut. "Just go, I'll make sure he doesn't follow you."

Because he was going to: Tanya could tell, and the kid could tell. This guy wanted to eat him whole. She shivered, understanding that.

The kid nodded, grabbed the warm paper bag without saying anything else, and fled.

Tanya picked up the coffeepot like a weapon, walked down the aisle, held it out with a wide smile. "Free refills," she said, coming towards the man.

"You know that boy?" the man asked, a slender smile creeping across his face, a crack in thin ice.

Tanya shook her head. "Never seen him before."

And the rentboys started to make noise behind her and she glanced over to see Lamont stand – pushed from the bench, actually, his turn. He sauntered over, adjusted his belt. "Mister, buy me a coffee?" he asked, leaning one hand on the counter.

"Sure, kid," the man said, and Lamont sat, but the man kept his eyes on the door.

--

The burger was cold by the time he got to the rough grass beside the tracks, even though he'd run most of the way. He'd gone the long route, just to make one last pass by the motel. Just in case, he told himself. Just in case. 'Cause this has to end soon, one way or another.

_You'll keep this up as long as it takes, Winchester._

Skidded to a halt by the line of old garages behind the ancient clapboard houses. Near the track, this part of town; either drug dealers or whores or seniors too old to move. The old Chinese lady who lived in the house on the end kept all kinds of weird shit in her garage, but she never came out to look.

Dean eased open the door, breath sawing in and out, the burger sitting in his stomach like a cannonball. He was shaky, and he marked that up to being out of shape, but it was nothing like that and he knew it. That was the first real meal he'd had in days.

He probably shouldn't have run all the way. But. But, and he couldn't think about why he'd run flat out like a demon was chasing him, because that would mean thinking about a whole lot of other things too, including something that felt like a demon but was only a choice not taken tonight. Maybe that was a different kind of demon.

The bag wasn't warm anymore, but that wouldn't matter, he didn't think, trying to see into the old wooden garage, windows screened with dirt and mold, everything smelling of cat piss and garbage and wet. Turned to close the door when he heard a sudden noise behind him and realized he hadn't made the knock and –

A two-by-four caught him on the shoulder, made him drop the bag, twanging a warm rush of pain down his arm and _fuckfuckfuck Sammy you pick now to go all Rambo on my ass_.

Dean grabbed the piece of wood as a small dark figure tried to get it up again, twisted it out of the way with a curse, still breathing like an asthmatic in a dog kennel.

"Jesus, Sam," he said and the figure in front of him stopped dead.

"Shit," the young voice came.

"Language," Dean warned, rubbing his shoulder, trying to spot where the bag had landed in the pitch darkness. Snatched it, a wave of dizziness hitting him mercilessly as he tried to stand. He crouched for a minute, let it pass. "I got you some food."

Sam hunkered down beside him, too close, but Dean allowed it. Maybe wanted it right now. There was an old Oldsmobile parked in the garage, no engine, up on blocks, tires gone. But bench seats front and back. Home for the last two weeks. The front seat was Dean's bedroom; the back, Sam's room, where he slept and did his homework. Neither liked what they shared the found space with: a family of raccoons, several rats.

There was worse, Dean reminded himself. They didn't have any light, and couldn't afford to call attention to themselves for such a luxury even if they'd had the money for candles or a flashlight. Dean had the one gun Dad had left them, but John Winchester hadn't thought of a flashlight. Or a telephone. Or food. He had left them at the motel, which had had all those things.

"A burger?" Sam breathed, plunging his hand into the bag. "Oh man. _Chocolate milk_?" Like Dean had mugged Santa and returned with his sack. Dean's breath was still coming weird and he swallowed with difficulty. Shit, all it took was chocolate milk. Who knew?

"You can eat it like a normal human being, you know," Dean whispered – this place was all about whispers – and stood slowly, pulling Sam up with him. Sam was already taking huge bites of the burger, barely chewing. "Slow it down, okay? Jesus, it's like watching a fucking golden lab at a picnic."

But Sam grinned. Dean could tell because one streetlight had kicked on, as it did from time to time, and a little sliver of light managed to squeeze through the broken window on the east side of the garage. Slight kid, all dark eyes and hair and pale skin. Grin like a searchlight over Hollywood.

"You go by the motel?" Sam demanded, finding the fries. He asked that all the time, fretting. He sat down on a broken wooden chair, set the bag on an upturned oil drum. "Did the manager spot you? Was the car back?" It wasn't the real question. It wasn't the question that both of them asked themselves over and over like a broken fucking record.

_Wherethefuckisdad?Wherethefuckisdad?_

Dean shook his head. _What, like that wouldn't have been the first thing out my mouth?_ "Nah." Nodded his head, knew he had to keep it up, this relentless front. "It'll be okay. Any day now."

"Where'd ya get the food from?" Sam asked, clearing the fries with an almost mechanical precision. He popped open the chocolate milk carton last, always one for delaying gratification. Gulped it down slowly, but never took it from his lips. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, beaming. He didn't care about the answer, Dean realized, so he said nothing.

For a long while, they sat in silence, then Dean reminded Sam he had school in the morning, that he needed to look 'normal' and he should get some sleep. They had plenty of blankets stolen from the motel, and soap, and even a dozen rolls of toilet paper. Towels, another oil drum outside full of freezing rainwater. Enough to get by.

"You okay?" Sam asked, taking off his grubby jean jacket and changing into a long-sleeved jersey shirt that he called his pajamas. The streetlight blinked off, and the garage was plunged into darkness again.

That was good, Dean reckoned, because Sam was getting to be an expert at reading him. "I'm fine," he said, voice rock steady. "We'll be fine. He'll be back soon."

--

TBC

a/n: Okay, you want the good news or the bad news? Okay, good news…I'm going to Scotland on Tuesday for a friend's wedding! Doesn't that sound like fun? A whole week, drinking Scotch, visiting my Gran, who's turning 100, drinking Scotch, helping my cousin shoe some horses, drinking Scotch, watching my fiddler cousin play in a pub…and I'm not even bringing my laptop so that pesky clients won't be able to bug me!

Uh, I'm presuming that by now you've figured out what the bad news is.

But I'm already working on chapter 3, the whole thing's outlined, don't worry, it's coming. But it'll be longer than my usual week between chapters, that's all. Have faith. And I'll be picking up messages as I go, but I might be drunk when I do it, so don't be surprised if my responses or posts are a little…squiffy.

--


	3. New Best Friend

**Red 3/10**

Chapter 3/New Best Friend

**Summary: **Something evil is killing treeplanters in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, possibly the same predator that Dean narrowly escaped years before. How Grimm will things get before the brothers figure it out?

**Obligatory Blahblah: **One day, Kripke will realize that I've been feeding him the best story ideas that money can buy…like, for no money, right? Until then…extravagant and resigned sigh.

**Rating:** Gen, PG-13 due to rather a lot of chainsaw shenanigans. WIP, will be 10 chapters. Horror/drama.

**General Abasements: **Oh, you folks have been so goddamn patient while I staggered about Scotland in a drunken stupor. Really, you're all dolls. Butlarge dollops of thanks go to my betas, Lemmy "Tigger" Pie and jmm "Eeyore" 001, who inspire and transcend.

**Story Thus Far:**

In 1992, Dean and Sam are on their own in Seattle when their father fails to come back from a hunt. Dean is considering his unsavory options for making ends meet until their father returns, one of which involves a predatory 'wolf' that is picking up rentboys in a local diner. In 1997, Dean is trying to provide for his family when John is sidelined by injuries; he takes a logging job on the Olympic Peninsula where things quickly get hairy. In the present day, the boys are hunting an elusive 'wolf' that is preying on treeplanters: Sam settles in with the planting crew while Dean rejoins old logging friends on the opposite side of the valley.

--

_Road to Quasilit Valley WA, present day_

Even after ten years, the smell of fresh cut fir and gasoline gave Dean a thrill, made him feel solid, gave him the same sense of gravity and independence that he experienced when hunting. The crew jacket Dave had given him reeked of independence, and Dean pulled up the collar, buried his nose in the rough wool.

Then had to brace himself against the dashboard of what had to be the oldest truck in Goodenuff Dave's aged fleet: Dave swung wildly around another steep switchback, the gears grinding as he dropped clumsily into second. Dean swore copiously, eliciting a cackle of laughter from Dave. The music alone – ZZ Top's _La Grange_ between flaring static and hiss – was enough to make Dean thankful Sam was miles away_. They gotta lotta nice girls/Have mercy/A haw haw haw haw._

The truck's defogger didn't work especially well in the rain, not with six bodies crammed into the king cab. Dean had been given the front seat, perhaps out of deference to his long-established relationship to Dave, his old friend from the Tacoma days. That's what he'd thought, anyway, when he'd climbed up into the truck at the Aberdeen motel, the Impala staring blankly at his defection. But maybe the back bench would have been safer, less chance of slamming yourself against the shifts and turns of the truck. In the back, at least, the guys were jammed together, couldn't move except under the most extreme ballistic duress.

The loggers smelled of cigarettes and gasoline and booze, had just come back from an afternoon at the Aberdeen bars, no one wearing seatbelts of course, just comprehensively _impaired_. Six in a truck with suspect brakes, a temperamental relationship with its wipers, and radio reception that reminded Dean of the sound a cat might make when dipped periodically into a deep fryer. Oh, and night was falling. Dean wondered if the headlights worked.

Another diversion, then: Dave and Brent Proctor hit on the brilliant idea of listing which girls on _7th Heaven_ they'd do if they were drunk enough, all the while the deep and dangerous green landscape washing and bumping and sliding around them as the truck slewed from side to side. Dean didn't even want to think about the drop on the other side of the logging road, where the mountain vanished into valley.

"Hey," Dean finally yelped, covered it as best he could with a question, "whatever happened to Marty…Marty…Joseph?"

"Coffeeman!" Brent yelled as though Dean wasn't a foot in front of him, causing Dean's left eardrum to rattle like a window in a hurricane. "Man, twelve-cup-a-day-dude, right?"

"Yeah, that's him. Bet he wished he'd laid off the caffeine," Dave chuckled, big face flushed.

Willy Garfield nodded enthusiastically. Dean craned his neck. Brent and Dave he knew; Willy hadn't been part of the crew ten years ago. "Got all jittery, took the undercut against the lean and BAM!" he slapped his hands together and Dean startled. 'Bam' was never a noise you wanted to hear when you were logging, or even talking about logging. "Tree came back onto the bar, shit, man trapped it there, Marty holding on and then the whole thing kicked up smoke."

"Drinks with his left hand now," Stottlemeyer nodded. "Not near as bad as Fontana." Stottlemeyer, a blond brickhouse of a man, was made for cutting up the fallen logs, driving demolition cars on the weekends and producing children on startled women in five different counties. "Man, he thought he'd outrun a kickback. Clean took his head off."

"Ortiz," Dave said, like it was a poker game. All the other guys groaned. "Man, the drag chain just snapped."

"So'd Ortiz," Brent chimed in. "In a bunch of places."

Dean grinned. He could imagine his dad sitting around with some of his old cronies, the ones who had been on speaking terms with him anyway, talking in just the same way. Being stupid, or slow or unlucky was just asking for it.

And just as he thought that, Dave threw the headlights on and they sliced into the gloom and the rain, revealing mud and rock and tree sliding towards them with baffling speed. Dave wheeled round, and the truck hit something hard on the undercarriage, but it didn't seem to worry Dave in the slightest. He didn't even slow.

A few minutes later, Dave said, "Shit," and Dean wondered if it was just a horribly delayed reaction, or something new and exciting; he peered through the windshield. The wipers were on a momentary break from wiping anything, though Dave didn't seem to be overly concerned with that either. Dean couldn't see a damn thing. Dave kept driving as though he was on a well-lit highway in a German-engineered car with Pirellis. "How many were there this morning?"

Stottlemeyer groaned. "Fuck, only five or so. Some of those women with the funny hats, I think. Had a big sign. Reckoned this rain would clear 'em out in a hurry. Need to get back to their mocha lattes."

"Few more now," Dave muttered and gunned the engine.

Suddenly, inexplicably, Dean recognized where he was: they were about to cross the bridge over the Quasilit River, where the road forked onto the north shore access road. After the bridge, Dave had said the road gained even more altitude, rising another five hundred feet before hitting their camp.

And a few more _what_? Then Dean realized that the dark smudges were small tents perched by the roadside and the headlights picked out a sign tied to the bridge itself, but Dean couldn't make out the words scrawled on the homemade banner, both because the rain was so heavy and because Dave was driving like a NASCAR champion with a bad case of the shakes. The protestors. Another thing that didn't change.

"Hey, think you might get lucky this time?" Brent called out from the back seat and Dean heard the pop and slurp of a beer can being opened. It was like the fucking wild west up here. He wondered if they had a bat in the back, might lean out the window on any given night and whack a few protestors as they went by, like kids in rural places did for mailboxes.

Jesus.

"Not far now," Dave said once they were safely over the bridge and the protest camp faded into the soft wet darkness. "This road went in two years ago. You won't have been this way before, Dino."

Old name, that, and a sudden silence puzzled the fetid cab. Into which of course came a bray of laughter. Willy, who had no right to make fun of anyone's name, Dean thought viciously, crowed. "Dino, huh? Hey Dave, is this…"

"Yeah, yeah, must be. I've heard the stories." Pasquale, first or last name Dean didn't know, who had been blessedly silent up till now, crunched a can in his hands, let it join others rattling around on the floor, then belched with the gusto of a six-year-old boy at a pizza party. "Dino the Kid. You're him? True?" This to Dave, asking for confirmation.

"Sure enough," Goodenuff said with a sideways grin to Dean. "He's the Kid, all right," even though Dave was only four years older than Dean, it had been a huge gap ten years ago. The difference between being a boy and being a man. The difference between getting piss in your boot and a spot on the regular rotation.

Dean didn't resent Dave for it; it was just the way things were. But he wasn't a kid anymore. Shit, he really hadn't been a kid back then, not in the ways that truly mattered.

"Yeah, that's me," he said slowly. "And all of it?" Was taking a chance here, but he knew Goodenuff well enough, knew his propensity to spin a tale wildly, and Dean knew what kernel of a story he'd left behind, could guess what Dave had expanded it to include. "All of it's true."

And that, for once, shut them up.

The silence lasted for all of a minute, all the time it took to haul ass into camp.

A small city of plywood shacks, a row of port-a-johns, a cinderblock construction lined with water tanks: the showerhouse. A white cookhouse tent, still lit up at this time of the evening, well after dinner hour, some of the guys probably playing cards or getting boozed up. Both. But it hit Dean like a blow, that tent, that recognizable feature from before.

"Looks different," Dean muttered, unwilling to admit how familiar the tent was now and what it had represented then. Safety, shelter. _Home_.

"Yeah, well, with all of us staying here for the week," Dave said, pulling in behind another truck, spattered and drenched with mud and rain. "We need all this crap. Still, cheaper than a motel and we're closer to the cut block. Longer days –"

"More trees," Brent said, and belched.

"More board," Pasquale further refined what Dean suspected was a litany.

"More money," Dean finished for them, earning a round of hoots and laughter.

They walked into the mess tent first, of course, because that's where all business in the camp transpired. Feeding, fighting, drinking. Dean surveyed the wide interior, beat up fridges, clamp lighting, long benches and tables. Looked different, but smelled the same.

"Where's Lori?" he asked, but it was followed by bleak silence.

--

Sam tried to imagine a time when he knew nothing about losing your line, or screefing a plant site, or slutting the density, or deep slash. Tried to imagine a time before duct tape had become his New Best Friend.

From a distance, the side of the mountain was an animal shaved for surgery: part of it furred lush thick green; immediately adjacent, a giant hand had flattened the landscape, brushed all the trees away, leaving behind stumps and broken branches and anything too small or too sick to earn anything but the lumberman's scorn. _Slash_. First new word of the day.

By the end of the second hour, his back was what hurt most, the bending down, coming back up. Fifty pounds of seedlings strapped to his waist. Then it was his hands, the left from plunging into the dirt, jamming the seedling into the hole, the right from gripping the D-handle of the shovel. If it wasn't for the duct tape binding his fingers and supporting his wrist, his hands would be shredded into ground round. He owed Ruby for that, because she'd bound his hands with the tape in the back of the truck on the way up here, silently, but with a little smile.

_Knowing what I was in for._

The pain in his hands was eventually superceded by the one in his feet, because three steps in he got a soaker and that was that for the rest of the day. Finally, it was the intense mix of anxiety and boredom, the wandering of his mind, from the tree to the treeline, up the steep hillside, the water sluicing down the slope, carrying away the topsoil to the Quasilit River hundreds of feet below. Watching for bears, especially after he'd come across a steaming pile of shit.

He lost his line. Stood at one point in the rain, drinking his water, wondering where the hell he was planting his next tree. Where had he planted his last tree? He'd lost his line, understood suddenly what that meant. Had no idea earlier that day what a goddamn hassle losing your line was.

Ruby was long gone, working her section, bagging up at the cache the last time he'd seen her. Watching for bears so hard he'd missed where he'd put his last tree.

Fuck.

Retraced his steps, saw Tommy coming in from the back end, two steps, screef the site with his calk boots, dig, plant, two steps, screef, dig plant. Fast, so fast, head always darting up, concentrating, looking for where the next tree was going to go before he'd even finished planting what was in his hand. Tommy grinned at Sam as he came closer, but didn't break stride.

"You a mover or a gawker?" he asked, and then passed by, methodically, completely at one with his task.

Sam blinked rain from his eyes, and steel took the place of boredom. He took a few steps back, found his last tree, looked two steps down the line, could see it in his mind's eye stretching all the way to the old growth across their section – the back end. _Right, screw you Tommy_. Look two steps ahead, get the fucking tree ready.

Screefed the chosen site with vigor. Winced as his foot complained.

Seven hours later, back at camp, sitting limply on his bedroll, Sam was pretty sure he'd lose two fingernails: they were bruised black and purple, despite the duct tape. He had more gashes and scrapes on his hands and legs and forearms that he could count. His back felt as though he'd been sleeping on rocks for weeks. His feet had blisters the size of quarters on both heels and under the thick calluses on the balls of his feet.

He had planted 956 trees.

Tommy had planted 3,541.

After camp fees, Sam had made a little more than a hundred dollars his first day out. He'd rather go after a rawhead barehanded than plant one more goddamned tree. And he had five more days to go before the next off day, five more days before he'd meet up with Dean at the motel. Inside his tent, pitched under the enormous colony of tarps belonging to various planters, Sam unwound the tape, examined his fingers, and eyed the satellite phone resting on his sleeping bag. Nope, wasn't going to call Dean. No way.

Just as Sam packed away the phone, raucous laughter burst from the cookhouse tent, and Sam realized he was close to starving, the peanut butter sandwich for lunch a distant memory. Darkness had fallen quickly in the narrow valley as he'd been examining his wounds and ignoring the phone, and he looked for the flashlight. He beamed it round the tent just as Ruby stuck her head in, no knock possible nor needed, a smile illuminated, eyes sparkling.

"Aren't you hungry?" she asked. Sam noticed she was trying not to stare at his blisters or his cuts. Too commonplace for comment, maybe. Or just as hungry as he was, too distracted by the thought of food to worry over the bangs and bruises of a neophyte.

Sam had never seen a woman pack away as much food as Ruby did.

Be fair, he counseled himself: between the lasagna, the garlic bread and the beer, they must have consumed over 4000 calories. Each. How many calories they had expended, however, was not negligible. Ruby had planted three seedlings to every one of Sam's, was a machine as awesome as Tommy.

Tommy wasn't the only one occupying the exalted territory of the 'highballers'; a whole table of them sat together, sharing cans of beer and stories. They laughed and the other planters – maybe thirty divided into three crews – peered over at them, awed, jealous and curious. Most were around Sam's age, early twenties. Some, though, were noticeably older, not students, not part of the summer job crowd.

Sam had no idea what he was looking for. As his metabolism equalized with the influx of calories and adequate hydration, he found that he could string together a sentence that made sense, could find oblique questions that got at the whole reason for why he was here. Seven at his table, Ruby and her cohort. Two missing in the last five weeks.

"Wandered off, I guess." That was the standard response. "Couldn't hack it." More or less mirrored what they'd heard at the Walla Walla diner. "They'll turn up." Which sounded more macabre this evening than it had yesterday. The dense wilderness accounted for that. Could turn up, literally. Could be screefing your dig site and come across bone.

The camp cooks, a Guatemalan husband and wife team, Maria and Pablo, served up more food after dinner, huge sweet sheets of date and oatmeal squares, then packed up for the night, making sure the supplies were bear proof. The large white canvas tent was left for the planters, and soon degenerated into a party. Everyone played something – Djibouti hand drums, guitar, harmonica, pan pipes – and would have been around a fire, but for the rain. Drugs were freely available; the tent became smoke filled, sweet, reminiscent of San Francisco when the Impala was new.

Sam sat by the tent flap and listened for wolves. He heard nothing but rain. As he sat, the lights turned down in the tent, Ruby settled in beside him, offered a massage, which was tempting, given how fucking sore he was. He smiled slow, all dimple and deference, but determined. This wasn't a summer in the trees earning enough money to study cultural anthropology come September. This was hunting, plain and simple. Well, never plain, and rarely simple.

Dean had said it was a wolf, and it wasn't a wolf and it had scared Dean shitless whatever it had been. _Ludovic_. It was hunting female treeplanters in this valley much as it had ten years before; ten years ago, it had taken away five, Dean had said. This season, two so far.

Sam knew Dean was lying by omission, wasn't telling him everything. Sam chalked it up to the fear, fear Dean would never admit to. Sam had to be smarter than that, would figure it out; together, between Dean's memories and Sam's smarts, they'd hunt this thing down. They were both on the mountain, on opposite sides of the valley, with a meeting place in five days. Collect information; compare notes. The satellite phone was for emergencies.

Before they'd split up, Dean had said he wasn't expecting the wolf to strike the lumber camp, but working there was the best way to get him on the cut block; the wolf-that-was-not-a-wolf kept away from the guys with axes, Dean had continued, white-lipped. Metaphorically, Sam had thought, still thought. Axes were a little nineteenth century, weren't they? Chainsaws, maybe.

The idea of Dean with a chainsaw made him grin wickedly, imagining the carnage Dean could inflict on any corporeal quarry. Ruby asked him what was so funny, but Sam waved her off, not wanting to mention Dean with or without a chainsaw, not so soon after Sam had broken up an ideological argument between them over a plate of sweet potato fries and a salmon burger.

Dean had disparaged the burger, had only eaten half, which was half a burger more than Sam would have guessed.

As Sam considered his relative astonishment at Dean's sudden connoisseurship of salmon burgers, a wiry man sat at the long bench, offered a joint of Kootenay homegrown, which Sam declined. He was one of the older guys, a lifer, Ruby had said earlier, when Sam had asked over a slab of garlic toast the size of the Impala's hood. Tommy, Lorenzo, Teresa. Lukas. The highballers of the crew, planters who'd been doing this year after year, literally a million trees in the course of a season.

"Hey," Lukas said by way of greeting. "You're new. How're things?" He looked to Sam's battered hands.

A memory tugged at Sam, hard and sharp, but damned if he could pinpoint its origin. Lukas was somewhere between thirty and fifty, a mid-European accent surfacing from vowel to vowel, slightly glassy-eyed. Graying dark blond hair tied back in a ponytail, eyes glinting with being stoned and something that Sam couldn't quite put his finger on.

Sam shrugged, poster child for the non-committal. "Okay." He allowed his glance to touch on Ruby, who had an arm linked through his, her cheek resting against his shoulder. This he didn't mind, actually. And what was the difference between this and massage, he briefly wondered, but he was too tired to actually take that to the next stage. Rules differed here, even his own. "Fine. Getting the hang of it."

Lukas smiled, a grim curve of pale lip and an exposed incisor, and Sam shuddered. _Someone's walking over my grave_, he thought. Was this instinct? Or merely the fact he was sitting high in the mountains, belly full of cheap beer, exhausted, with a very attractive young woman offering him a massage?

_This guy_, Sam thought, pulling back, Ruby's arm falling to her side. _This guy's wrong_.

"You been planting a long time, Ruby says." She'd said Lukas was a fucking automaton, that's what she'd said.

Lukas shrugged. "Used to scout timber, believe it or not. Wanted to put something back in, I guess. Enough of harvesting. Time to plant."

"How's that working out?" Sam laughed, but low in the throat, almost a growl.

Lukas non-smiled again. "It's working out. I make enough to go down to Costa Rica every winter."

Sam would have given his eye teeth for an internet hook up right then. His Spanish was good enough to trawl newspaper reports. Had girls gone missing in Costa Rica? _Hold up there, Sammy._ Too much beer and hinky stupid superpowers that didn't work even on a good day. _Lukas is just creepy, not a wolf. Not a threat._

Really fucking creepy, though.

Ruby seemed enthralled, leaned closer, reached out and touched Lukas's hand; from across the tent, someone shouted for a song and one of the guitar players started up again and Sam wished he'd had one less beer. Shit.

He watched Ruby watching Lukas, and shuddered again. He couldn't call Dean with this. What the fuck would he say? Met a creepy highballer who's trying to steal the hippy chick I'm not interested in. Too sore to even consider it – his hands. And his feet. And his back.

_Call it a night, Sammy._

So he said goodnight to Lukas, and smiled to Ruby, who wasn't feeling any pain, none whatsoever, and stumbled through the rain to where his tent leaked intermittently throughout the night.

Sam slept like he was already dead.

--

_Seattle WA, 1992. _

Sam didn't know what Dean had against Robert Heinlein. The man was a genius. But the children's librarian had asked Sam twice now if he had a parent coming to pick him up, wanted to know his home phone number. That had been enough for Dean; he had unilaterally declared the library off-limits for after-school homework sessions. The garage would have to do. Sam was forced to hang on to _Stranger in a Strange Land_ and it looked like he wasn't going to get the chance to return it. Dean's paranoia had made Sam into a book-stealer.

Sam hoped 'school' didn't get to be another place Dean thought too dangerous, because the play was coming up and Sam was pretty sure Mrs. Legris was going to give him a part. They would stick out the year, Dad had promised, not two months ago. Dean was going to keep to that, wasn't he?

But only if no one found out that they were living in an abandoned car. Dean didn't need to tell him that, for pete's sake. Though he _did_, repeatedly, like Sam was a frigging moron. _I can make Dad's signature on the field trip form just fine, Sammy. Tell Mrs. Fucking Legris_ (and why he had to call her that, Sam had no idea because she was actually nice) _that you'll pay her next week. Don't talk to any adults if you don't really, really have to, Sammy. Always take a shower after gym, even if the other kids don't._

_Yeah, because Dean, man, you're not exactly smelling like a rose yourself. _

Hand to back of head.

Dean was cutting classes like crazy, Sam knew, but always produced a note, sometimes written on paper stolen from the photocopier in the 7-11. His brother was ducking and lying and really, not having much fun, if you judged from the expression on his face.

Sam knew Dean thought he didn't notice, but he did. To pass time during the dark hours, when the sun went down and the streetlight was on, Sam opened up the Heinlein and read out loud.

Maybe that's what caused Dean to go out every night. Maybe Dean didn't like classic sci-fi. Maybe Sam should switch to the Goosebumps series, which Dad always called crap. Except he didn't use the word crap. Could get one of those from Mrs. Legris's shelf in the classroom. But Dad was right; they were sucky and Dean would hate them on principle.

It wasn't Heinlein, though, that was driving Dean out night after night and Sam knew it. Dean was breaking into cars, Sam guessed, worried and hungry. Man, Sam was hungry all the time, way hungrier than Dean, because Dean hardly ate anything, seemed uninterested in food. Sam didn't tell Dean that Mrs. Legris had been giving him lunch money for the past week, because that was the sort of thing that would make Dean nuts. _We're not a friggin' charity case, Sammy._

Then two nights in a row without any dinner, just fries and hotdogs and chili from the school cafeteria at lunchtime to hold him over, Dean out from sundown to past midnight, coming back drenched and shivering, once with a shiner and blood on his knuckles.

Sam was getting scared.

Dean kept saying that Dad was coming back, but that's what he'd been saying since the beginning, since Dad had left them in the motel. Back in three days, Dad had said, throwing guns in a canvas sack, so rote that Sam had barely paid attention. The Impala had rumbled off, seventy dollars in tens lying on the kitchenette's table held down by the revolver. Sam knew most fathers didn't use a gun for a paperweight. Five days later and nothing, less fifty dollars. Six days, no money left, and the motel owner had threatened to call child services.

Dean had smiled and said they were going to go stay with an uncle. They'd be out of her hair by noon. Dean had stripped the room practically bare. Day seven and Dean had found the garage.

Sam had looked at the garage in mute horror. After a minute, he'd said, _How will Dad find us, Dean?_

_I'm keeping an eye on the motel. Dad'll be back soon_, Dean had said, not for the last time. _We don't need to call Pastor Jim. I can take care of this._

Of you, he meant. At least he didn't say it this time.

It was almost three weeks now, since Dad hadn't come back. Dean kept checking the motel, and Sam knew he really should stop asking, that he was being a pest, but he couldn't help it. Three weeks was longer than Dad had ever been gone before and Dean suddenly wasn't talking about anything anymore. They had no money, and Sam suggested selling the gun, and Dean looked at him as though he was something that had crawled out from an open grave.

Wasn't saying anything now, either, just had a determined look on his face, that set expression in his eyes that telegraphed _don't screw with me_, but that was actually the look he got when he was either scared or really, really worried. Sam couldn't tell which it was, because it took all his concentration to keep up with Dean's long stride.

Dean stopped beside a shabby commercial row, pulled Sam to his side wordlessly, glared at him. _Stay put_, that meant. While Sam stayed put and thought of grilled cheese sandwiches, Dean peered around the corner. The sun was just going down. Dinnertime, Sam's stomach announced loudly.

For some reason, that made Dean laugh and Sam was grateful. He didn't like it when Dean was so serious. "Okay, Sammy," Dean muttered quietly, laying one hand on his shoulder. The jean jacket was one of Dean's old ones, and was still too big, but when pulled over two t-shirts and an old orange fiberfill vest with a broken zipper, it was almost warm. "Coast is clear. Let's go."

The coast was clear in a diner, apparently, one with grammatically challenged hand-written signs (the rules for possessive apostrophes were pretty straightforward, weren't they?) and tired booths, ripped up stools.

But the smell of hot oil and salt was intoxicating and Sam stood in the doorway, just breathing, for a long while. The waitress looked at him strangely, a weird looking woman with black and pink hair, too many earrings to count, a pierced eyebrow and tattoos on her upper arms. Sam didn't feel like smiling at her.

_Don't talk to any adults you don't have to._

So what the heck was Dean doing? Just walking up to the counter, sliding in with that stupid fake smile and an apologetic shrug in Sam's direction that even Sam knew was because Dean felt awkward bringing his kid brother into such a decrepit diner.

_Well, screw you, Dean._

There were other boys in the place, a few on their own, parents must have dropped them off or would be picking them up soon, cause they didn't look old enough to be out at night. They'd been loud when Dean had come in, but as soon as Dean sat down, they got all quiet.

The waitress came over to Dean, and he turned to Sam, waved him over. _Don't be a fucking dipshit_, the look said. Sam sauntered over, nostrils wide, taking in the smells.

Dean's new best friend set down two enormous glasses of chocolate milk and that was all it took. Sam knew his eyes had gone big, and he hated Dean for that small smile of satisfaction, like he was saying 'gotcha' without words.

The waitress was called Tanya and she alternated between giving them overflowing plates of fries and looking worried.

"Cops have been all over here," she said, giving a quick glance to Sam. Dean followed her look. He'd eaten his plate pretty quickly, Sam thought, surprised.

Dean raised his eyebrows and the waitress looked over to the booth where the three boys sat. "Kids keep going missing."

"That, uh," Dean stumbled over words. That was unlike him, and it piqued Sam's curiosity. "That guy," he said finally and Sam didn't recognize the voice, all strangled and soft.

Tanya shrugged, offered Dean coffee and he nodded. "Been back every night, sweetheart," and she stared hard at Dean. A warning. "Told the cops, but what the fuck do they know?" Or care, she might have said. She put the coffee pot back on the burner and leaned over the counter, twirled a strand of dayglo pink between black-nailed fingers. "You want a salmon burger?"

Her suggestion surprised a small laugh from Dean, and Sam liked Tanya even more for that than for the chocolate milk. "Salmon?" Dean repeated. "In a burger?"

Tanya smiled wide, wagged dark brows up and down. "I make a mean salmon burger, kid. With pine nuts. Secret ingredient. Fucking dynamite on a plate. One day, I'll make a fortune with 'em, too good for this joint. You'll see. You too, rugrat," she turned the smile on Sam and he smiled back.

"What's salmon?" he asked.

"Suck it and see," she said over her shoulder.

And it was way better than anything Sam had ever tasted. Pink, but he'd get past that. Fish, apparently, but that was okay too. Dean ate it faster than Sam, which was saying something, making Tanya beam as though both he and Dean were works of art she'd fashioned from rough clay.

It was dark outside and raining again, the windows fogging up by the boys.

Men came in and out, none of them _fathers_, but something else that Sam couldn't recognize but didn't like. Sam caught Dean looking over at the table of boys, watching, careful and guarded. Like he was most of the time. When he wasn't being a grade A jerk. Sam had no idea how they were going to pay for this. Maybe Dean was planning a dine-and-dash. They'd done it before, earlier in the week, for breakfast.

It didn't feel like that, though. Tanya knew Dean, he'd been here before. Because of her smile and the food, it felt homey, for all that Dean alternated between nervous and satisfied. The warmth. Sam felt like taking off his jacket, but that meant they couldn't run out of here fast, so he kept it on.

"So what's your name?" Tanya asked Sam when Dean went to the toilets. She didn't seem any different, didn't seem like an adult, really. Just a big kid.

"Sam," he said. "Dean didn't tell me about you."

She nodded slowly. "Yeah, he's careful, that one. You brothers?"

Sam nodded and she refilled his chocolate milk. "You gotta parent around?"

And Sam shut up, didn't even touch the milk. Tanya noticed, her mouth twitched. "Hey, don't worry, Sam. I'm not calling the cops."

"But you said they were here already."

"That's because of…" the bell over the door interrupted her and she looked up, her expression changing sharply. Sam thought maybe 'hardened' was the right word, but that wasn't it, because she was also scared. He could almost smell it. She bent back down, put her mouth right against Sam's ear and he went all itchy, puffed up like one of those prickly fish. "You go out back – get Dean and leave through the back door. Julio'll let you. Tell your brother not to come out…"

But it was too late, because Dean stood in the archway by the toilets and he was _white_.

Sam turned in his place, and the boys at the next table settled too, and Sam then stood slowly to see what everyone was staring at.

A tall kid with a swagger that would shame an alleycat. Had a bunch of bills in his hand and he called to Tanya for a round of burgers for the boys at the table. Was so loud and obnoxious that Sam didn't immediately register that someone stood behind the kid, one hand ruffling the unruly black hair like he owned him, pushing the boy to his table of friends.

A man, sort of. A man who walked right up to Dean, all quiet like a cat or a hunting bird circling in the sky, totally ignoring everything else in the diner. Sam's heart thudded, because he could see what was in the man's eyes and he couldn't put a word to it, even though he was a kid full of words. _Oh fuck_, he thought, and that was the first time he'd said that word, even to himself.

He didn't know if this was the dark-haired kid's dad, or a truant officer, or social worker, or detective. But it felt like a _shark_, felt hungry and wild and…and _evil_, which was one of their Dad's words that Sam had never completely understood before. He didn't need to understand evil to recognize it, though.

The man came right up to Dean, put both hands on Dean's shoulders, all his weight on one foot, smiled, licked his lips and Dean didn't move.

_Move, Dean. Please move._

Before he had time to think it through, Sam grabbed Dean's arm, pulled him away, Dean suddenly aware, back to himself, came between Sam and the man. Pushed Sam away, bending down like Tanya had. "Run," he whispered hoarsely so only Sam would hear. "The garage. _Run_." And shoved Sam away.

Sam looked at Dean, shook his head. No. He turned to the man, crossed his arms_. Fuck you, asshole._

"We gotta go. Our Dad's waiting for us," Sam lied clearly, braced by an overwhelming anger. "And he's a cop."

The man smiled again but his rapacious gaze was all on Dean, who was still pushing Sam towards the door. "You'll be back," the man honeyed, then turned to the table of boys and Sam had a good grip on Dean then and dragged him out the door.

They ran for awhile, Dean finally telling Sam to take a different route, but they met up back at the garage. Dean said the car still wasn't at the motel, so he'd gone by and checked. Sam didn't say anything.

He wasn't going to ask about Dad anymore, he decided. Never again. _Fuck him._

--

_Quasilit Valley WA, 1997_

Lori served up beans on toast, eggs, huge rashers of bacon that probably came from a smoked brontosaurus. A stack of pancakes adequate for Paul Bunyan. She smiled surreptitiously, perhaps taking perverse pleasure in the silence that fell over the tent when the men ate. She delighted in slapping a mound of scrambled eggs on Dean's plate, that much he knew from the dimples.

At first, he'd thought it was because she'd had a crush on him – Lori, maybe in her late twenties, a tiny thing the size of a sparrow, blonde hair tied back in two braids, round face reminiscent of those Norwegian trolls Dad had once hunted in Minnesota, the ones that tied knots in cow's tails and curdled milk. The little fuckers that tampered with outboard motors, blowing up fishermen, which was why John Winchester had been called in.

Merry, mischievous. Had a serious boyfriend, a guy who owned a fishing resort in Puget Sound; was getting married in September. So, not into Dean in _that_ way, though he'd been charming – shit, how did he ever get by in this world without doing that? – and she was suitably charmed. Just not going to sleep with him. She gave him more food than the others, anyway.

He'd needed it. By the end of the second week, just coming up to the weekend, Dean had not only gotten the hang of using a chainsaw, Uncle Goodenuff had declared him a walking miracle of falling instinct. Not that it had earned him any respect. The rest of the crew had continued to razz him mercilessly, spiked his coffee thermos with piss, called him the Kid without stop, never once offered him a hand or a word of encouragement. They had willingly worked beside him, though. Dean had noticed that.

Noticed that along with how Goodenuff Dave had batted his big brown eyes at Lori – to no avail, man, half the battle is knowing when to lay siege, fuckwad – and the way Brent Proctor always offered to make the coffee. Dean was pretty sure Brent was the one pissing in his boots and thermos.

None of which changed the fact that Lori liked Dean best, maybe because he was the youngest, the obvious youngest, maybe because he wore an invisible sign that read 'motherless kid' on his back like a bad joke. Maybe because he knew women well enough by eighteen to know when to be a friend and when to turn it on and right now, she'd have happily tucked him in at night and read him the _Very Hungry Caterpillar_ twelve times in a row like Sam had always demanded.

Which was why Dean was immediately on guard that day, because he saw the expression on her face and to him it looked like fear.

The only other person in the tent was a tall blond man, rangy like he didn't eat much, rangy like he _wanted_ to eat, given half a chance. Hovering over coffee spiked with rye, eyeing Dean as though this was it, man, this was why he'd come.

Right behind him, Goodenuff Dave pushed Dean out of the way, mostly because he was just standing there like a post, for fuck's sake, said, "Hey Ludovic! Whatcha find out?" and poured himself a cup of coffee from Lori's tureen. Dave, goddamned Dave, grabbed Dean's elbow, took a handful of plaid, steered him to the bench opposite the table.

Dean had gone cold, a prickle running up his spine, hadn't moved an inch, only because he was repeating something in his head over and over and over. That was: _don't run, don't run, don't run_. He knew from his father that there were times to run and there were times that running only got you chased.

He swallowed hard and let himself be dragged to the table, sat at the edge of the bench, throat closed up and dry. And he had no idea why. Just this guy, this Ludovic, who Dean knew he'd seen before. He was struggling to remember, because that was only instinct. But he was also trying to shut down the memory before it surfaced, because that was another way of avoiding horror.

_Oh, god, if I faint the guys'll never let me hear the end of it. Just a guy. Just a fucking goddamned creepy guy._

A sudden flash of teeth and that was all. Dean shook his head, looked away. Found Lori's eyes, held there for a long moment. She nodded once, but did not smile, did not comfort.

"Hey, Dean," she shouted, waved him over. Dean risked a glance to Dave, who was talking with this Ludovic, finding out about inclines and board feet and spar lines. Dave gestured okay, and Dean stood as though the seat had an electric current running through it.

"Help me with this," Lori muttered, picking up one end of a long table. Make work. Dean could see it and Lori didn't disguise it. She said she wanted the table outside, where the midday sun hung high in the sky. "Eat lunch outside today, if you want."

An easy out.

"Who," he started, but couldn't finish. Lori didn't stop her fussing, told Dean to stay there while she brought out the bins of cutlery. He would have offered to help, but that would mean going back inside the tent.

Third trip out, she dumped a pile of rough tablecloths into his arms, patted his shoulder. "Saturday tomorrow," she dropped her voice. "Don't hang around here, okay? You go back down with Dave."

He brought his chin up. He hadn't been raised a coward. The question was in his eyes, and he didn't have to ask twice. Lori shifted her stance, threw a linen over the coffee serving area, put her hands on her hips. Finally, she shook her head.

"He's bad fucking news. From Croatia, or Serbia. Something like that. Surveys the timber stands, figures out the best harvests, plots the roads up. Worth his weight in gold, boss says. Scares the crap outta me." Her arms were crossed; Dean could see the glint of her modest engagement ring next to a crisscross of grill burns. Tapping out a rhythm.

"Why?" he asked. Quietly, only a few feet and a screen of white canvas between Ludovic and them.

She shrugged, maybe a little embarrassed. Brent had told a story about Lori chasing away a black bear that had threatened the camp's supplies, empty-handed, barefoot, and after midnight. Not scared of weird shit in the night. Lori didn't remind Dean so much of anything as himself. As himself as he'd like to be, maybe. Taking care of people. Brave, smart, observant. _True_.

"Couldn't say, really. Just…" this time she waved one hand around in a small circle, inconsequential and oddly delicate. She stopped, maybe aware of the futile gesture. "He's hungry. Not right. You know how when they catch serial killers and the neighbors always say, 'Oh, he was such a fucking normal guy, who woulda thought he'd fry up babies?' That's not Ludovic. You could tell me that he raped, murdered and ate an entire Boy Scout troop and I'd believe you."

Dean swayed so much he had to take a step back. He grabbed the table's edge as the forest turned around him. He must have gone to some color for Lori to gasp like that, but before she reached him, he'd already righted himself. One hand up. Fuck, if Brent and the guys saw this, he'd never hear the end of it.

"I'm okay," he whispered shortly. Looked up, saw the concern in Lori's face. He tried to smile, but knew that probably only completed the picture of 'village idiot, junior version'. "Really."

Effort was involved, but he stood on his own, brushing imaginary dirt from his jeans. Wiping the sweat from his palms. Why the fuck didn't he remember this guy? He'd met Ludovic before, he was sure of it. Eating Boy Scouts.

_Don't think of that, Winchester. _

Tomorrow he'd go home with over a thousand dollars in his pocket. _Think of that_. Enough for groceries and rent and medicine. For chocolate milk and frosted flakes. He'd walk into that crummy goddamn apartment and lay his pay packet on the table and smile at Sam. Who would ignore him, of course, would barely look up from whatever book he was reading. But he'd know. And at some point, Sam would reward all this with a huge smile, probably while drinking the chocolate milk directly from the carton, too tall for his shirt, cuffs coming up past his skinny wrists.

Smiling and chocolate milk. That knocked something loose inside Dean and it rattled around, hurting. _I don't want to remember this, do I?_

New clothes, those too. And Dad sitting up in bed, his leg cast in plaster from ankle to hip, maybe not a smile, but with a dance in his dark eyes. Never mind that Dad was going to be insane with worry disguised as fury. Never mind that. Maybe a glint of pride, but maybe not. It wasn't why Dean was doing this.

Never mind the danger. Never mind whatever that taunting, elusive memory was, just out of earshot, like a figure shouting at him from a distant hillside. From years away. No amount of danger outweighed what he was doing now. Protecting his family. Keeping them together. Keeping them going.

From that, he mustered a smile for Lori and she grudgingly gave him one back, but she was worried. And so was he.

--

TBC

**a/n:** As anyone who's ever read other stuff of mine knows, my research methods are freakishly haphazard and occasionally clairvoyant. Explain to me the serendipity of this: Sitting across from A2 in a swanky restaurant two months ago, he says to me, "Hey, we're thinking of starting a new research project on treeplanters and their perceptions of risk." And I've already started outlining Red at this point. As I wipe the red wine from A2's face and chest, I try to explain that, yes, I'd love blind access to these interviews. So I've been mainlining treeplanting lore like a downtown eastside crack whore for MONTHS now.


	4. Dinner Bell

**Chapter 4/**Dinner Bell

**Ownership Issues: **St. Francis of Assisi said 'it is in giving that we receive'. So, here you go. Merry fucking Christmas. These words are mine, but CW owns the rest of the marbles, and they rule the playground.

**Rating:** This story is what it is, but if I must: Gen, PG-13 for grown up situations faced by children who ought not to have to face such things. WIP, will be 10 chapters.

**Credit Where It's Due: **The sources are too numerous to number, really. HOWEVER, a lot of the research here comes from John Vaillant's excellent non-fic on logging history, _The Golden Spruce_. I'd also direct you to read Carole Roy's _The Raging Grannies_, but only if you don't have Grannies in your immediate family because it's way more fun just hanging with the girls at a protest. There's a lesson to be learned in growing old disgracefully from these dames.

**Thanks: **To Lemmypie and jmm0001 for providing the necessary strokes and slaps. pause That came out wrong, didn't it?

**Story Thus Far:**

Three intertwining stories about the wolves that hunt in the dark, whether in mountain forests or urban diners. Seattle, 1992: After John doesn't return from a hunt, Dean and Sam are living on their wits and dumb luck, both of which are failing rapidly. At a diner frequented by rentboys and their tricks, Dean is fed by a kindhearted waitress, but also marked by a predator. Five years later, Dean endures a rough initiation in a logging camp while Sam stays obliviously in town, tending to their injured father. At the camp, high in the mountains of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, Dean runs into the timber scout, Ludovic. Memories begin to surface, which Dean ruthlessly suppresses. In the present day, Dean and Sam are once again drawn to the Quasilit Valley by reports of vanishing treeplanters. Sam takes a job with the planters, while Dean resumes old friendships and conflicts at the logging camp. Slowly, Sam is coming to understand that Dean knows more about what's hunting in the forest than he's letting on…

**--**

_Aberdeen WA, present day_

Sam wondered if Dean had been working on his pity-face while he'd been up at the logging camp, then decided no. Dean didn't feel pity, period. He wasn't made for it, not even for Sam. Dean abandoned his empty beer bottle on the chipped formica countertop next to the sink and the toothbrushes, turned Sam's hand over to examine the cuts, the missing fingernails, and grimaced. Sam's fingers were tacky with duct tape residue. A twist of the mouth: _That's so fuckin' gros_s.

"Don't go making any Palmolive commercials, dude," Dean said shortly, reaching into his shaving kit for a tube of Neosporin. "The shit they spray on clearcuts is fucking toxic, man." And handed him the antiseptic.

Not that Dean was any walking advertisement for logging as a healthy lifestyle choice, Sam thought. The strident fluorescent light of the bathroom illuminated a long bruise across Dean's cheekbone and his arms were lashed with cuts and bruises. They looked like hell, the both of them. After only a few days in the bush.

Sam followed Dean out of the bathroom, daubing his cuts, vaguely disturbed at the thought of chemicals eating their way into his skin. Dean opened another two beers from the case next to the TV, gave one to Sam. "So, find out anything?"

Sam shrugged, dropped into the room's only armchair like a sack of Century Russets and sighed mightily. The bedsprings twanged as Dean stretched out, stacking the pillows against his back. He bent one arm behind his head. Winced, but didn't say anything else. Was quiet, unnaturally so.

_Just tired?_ Sam wondered. "Well, I now know that nettles, dandelions and salmon jerky are technically edible, that I can't really tell the difference between texturized vegetable protein and ground beef when it's in spaghetti sauce, and that soy milk tastes okay, but only if it's chocolate."

That elicited another smirk, but Dean's attention was on an especially cloying landscape screwed to the wall, another excellent exhibition at the Motel 6 Museum of Fine Art. He was listening, though, because his sober gaze swung back to Sam. "Eat like a king up there." He sounded wistful, of all things.

Sam peeled off his shoes and socks, looked at his blistered feet, thought about soliciting Dean's opinion on the best method for building up calluses fast. Nah. That was just asking for it. He uncapped the Neosporin again.

The rest of the planting crew had gone into town to party, to blow a significant portion of their accumulated wealth on liquor and weed. How they had the energy for it was beyond Sam. It was already eight o'clock on a Friday night, and he was due to go back to the treeplanter's camp tomorrow afternoon; it didn't leave much time. Ruby had asked if Sam wanted to hang with them, had _beckoned_, but Sam had declined with a smile and an apology: meeting up with his logger brother, he'd said, which had put her off.

Not that Dean had done much more than grunt at him since he'd arrived at the motel room an hour ago.

How the hell did he get a blister under his toenail? Shit, he was going to lose that nail, wasn't he? Sam woggled it back and forth like a second grader did a front tooth, slightly nauseated. "There was one guy on the crew who looked…" he floundered for a description, "…just off, you know, kinda weird."

"Yeah," Dean breathed and Sam glanced up. Dean's eyes were closed, the beer bottle cradled against his chest at an angle that was going to soak him in a minute.

"Dean?" Sam got up, trod gingerly over to his brother and slipped the beer bottle from his lax grip. He sighed. They didn't have much time for strategizing. On the other hand, they weren't exactly sharp as fucking stakes right now. Sam set his alarm, because there was the distinct possibility that they'd sleep half the day away.

He tugged off Dean's boots, threw a nappy yellow blanket over him. Dean shifted, one hand flailing in the air, a mutter of vowels, but he didn't wake up. Sam smiled deeply. "'Night," he sighed, wishing for everything horizontal and silent and dark.

He snapped off the light, crawled into bed and right then it was closer to heaven than beer, a well-stocked library, or burying your face in a girl's just-washed hair.

Sam slept, dreamed darkly of trees and something that slid between them. Chilled and silent, the woods breathed venom in the tune of desire. A primal need unmet. A moon hung in the sky, an arctic drum of stretched skin, thrumming, _wanting_. Then the dream was shredded by a howl, one that rent the air like a bandage torn from a wound, harsh and bloody and unexpected.

"Sam!" came a shout beside his ear and he was shaken so hard his teeth rattled. Light streamed into his eyes: the bedside lamp must have been armed with a 100-watt bulb. What the hell did they do at this motel? Interrogate prisoners?

Dean had a fist twined in Sam's shirtfront, and it took Sam a good few seconds to recognize the expression on his brother's face, which was fear combined with worry, disguised as _don't fuck with me_. He'd had that expression in his arsenal for a long as Sam could remember.

"What did I do?" Sam pushed Dean's hand away, sat up like he was taking Hamburger Hill in a wheelchair. The drapes were closed, and no light paled behind them. Peered at the clock: four-thirty. Wide awake.

Dean rubbed a hand over his eyes. Scratched his chin and the pissed-off expression softened slightly, right into sarcasm. "You started yammering about a big purple dinosaur and singing that friggin' song, man. Thought I was gonna have to cap you with the lamp to make you shut up."

So that meant he wasn't going to say. Great. This communication thing is _awesome_, Dean. "Sorry, man." Sam swung his bare legs off the bed. Dean looked around, grabbed his room temperature beer from the bedside table and took a swig before handing it to Sam, who tipped it back after only a moment's hesitation. It actually tasted pretty good, all things considered.

"You should get more…" Sam gestured to Dean's rumpled bed, but his brother was already pacing around the small motel room.

"Nah, I'm good," he said, watching Sam finish the beer with something that might have been surprise in his round eyes. He blinked once and grinned. "You need to learn to relax, Sammy."

Sam grimaced. The dream…something about a moon and a forest. Didn't take a genius to figure it out. Nothing psychic, he was just in the habit of dreaming _loud_. "Maybe I should have invested in the kilo of Maui Wowie Tommy's gone to pick up. That would have mellowed me out."

Dean chuckled. "Don't get mixed up with those freaks, man. Next thing you know, you'll be popping 'shrooms and having some kinda tantric convergence with…hey, how'd things work out with that chick?"

Sam smiled tepidly, willing to let the dream drop. Wanting to forget the sticky longing of it, the hunger. "Not my type."

Dean bent over his disgorged duffle bag, but looked up, alert, like a kid with a slingshot was alert. "So your type, loser." The grin faded a little. "You know, the laundry room here will be so free right now, and you stink like a Pepé le Pew eating Mexican from a dumpster. C'mon."

Dean was right; the motel's laundry facilities were free, but only because they were locked. He took one look at the knob and gestured to Sam, who popped the lock without a second thought. Dean sat on the dryer while Sam sorted clothes from their bags.

"What else you notice up at camp?" Dean mumbled. He looked ridiculous, mostly because he'd pulled the fuzzy yellow blanket around him so he could wash everything in his possession. Thanks to CSI, Sam knew the typical body fluid content of motel blankets. He didn't point that out to his brother, who was, of course, oblivious to appearances at five a.m. in a motel laundry room with only Sam around.

Sam shifted, stuffed a load of darks in the washer. The laundry room was unheated; he shivered, and gave his slightly reeking sweatshirt a reprieve from the wash. He used the act of pulling it over his head to form his words, because he didn't know what would make Dean clam up. "There was one guy who seemed suspicious. Only met him the first night; he's on a different crew than me. I only see him in the mess tent. Even camps up the mountain side, away from the others."

Dean's eyebrows rose incrementally and he pulled the blanket closer, making Sam cringe. "Yeah?"

"Name's Lukas," still not getting anything from Dean. Sam fished around in the daypack, looking for his phone. Found it, turned it on, scrolled till he found what he was looking for and handed it over. "That's him on the far left."

"What? This guy with rasta braids and the bandana?"

Sam grabbed the phone back. The picture wasn't a very good one; Lukas was across the tent, the light was bad and other people were standing around. And the picture was on a phone, for chrissake. "No, behind that guy. The tall blond guy."

Dean peered at the tiny screen. He was silent, his lips pursed. He shook his head so slightly Sam could barely see it, let alone decipher what it meant. "You recognize him? From before?"

The shake this time was definite. "Could be the guy from Siegfried & Roy, Sammy. The blond one -- that Siegfried or Roy? Or maybe it's that chick from _Red Sonja_…Brigitte Rambo-Balboa. You're working with a bunch of D-list celebrities up there. Expect Danny fucking Bonaduce to show up on the cut block." And tossed the phone onto the washer as Sam dropped quarters into the slots.

Sam's mouth compressed into a thin line, despite his best efforts not to. Maybe Dean noticed because he blinked once, looked away. "Sorry. The picture's not good enough. Could be him. I suppose. Maybe." He had to speak over the sudden whoosh and rhythmic bump of the washing machine.

"Well, that's definitive," Sam muttered, collecting the phone and punching it off.

"What do you want, Sam?"

"A straight answer? How about that, Dean?"

Dean, swaddled in the blanket, bare feet dangling off the edge of the dryer like a four-year-old, was not exactly occupying a position of power, not with Sam towering over him. Still, he wasn't budging, not much. Sam recognized the miniscule signs of give, though: a twitch, two fingers raised. _Have a seat._

Sam settled on the washer and edged closer to Dean, because the machine was louder than the Impala and Sam wanted to hear every word his brother was going to speak.

"Like I said, back in '97, his name was Ludovic. He was a timber scout. Came and went, I never knew when the fuck he'd be around."

"This Lukas said he used to be a timber scout." Sam bit his lip, knew that he should leave a silence for Dean to fill, but they didn't have enough time and he had to be sure. "He has an accent. Weird. Can't tell what it is."

"Serbian," Dean supplied, looking down at the scarred lino. "Think it's Serbian."

"We know any Balkan wolf lore?" Sam prodded, careful not to scream _why the fuck didn't you tell me this sooner?_ They only had a couple of hours now to come up with something, and they'd get nothing accomplished if Dean stonewalled him. So he didn't scream.

Dean stared quickly at Sam, bristling. "Don't you think I kept my ears open, over the years? Don't drink out of their footprints, that's all I got."

"I take it," Sam said slowly, "that you haven't done that?"

Dean suddenly sighed explosively, and the washer violently altered its cycle under Sam's ass, almost in complement. "Shit, no Sam! I haven't done anything to…" His voice petered out, and the small windowless room was filled with Dean's silence, louder than the washer's strenuous complaints.

_It took a fucking shine to me._

This time, Sam shut up, left it open for Dean. When his voice came, it was soft and Sam had to strain to hear it. "It kills the women from rage, I think. From being…denied."

Still, Sam said nothing. Dean's attention was on the floor, one hand clutching the blanket, the other wrapped around his waist like he had a stomachache.

"I don't know what it's after." Dean didn't look up, kept his face angled away. Masking, not with the opaque stare, or the pissed off one, but with an out-and-out lie.

"Bullshit," Sam said, though it might shut Dean down. He was done dancing around this.

This thing was after Dean; he'd said so himself. And Dean had always attracted attention, he was _attractive_ in every sense of the word. Attracted trouble and luck and danger and desire. Sam's dream: keen need sharp and deadly as a blade. It came back to Sam with force, and he knew what Dean wouldn't admit.

This close, he could see the bruise jump on Dean's face as he flinched. Could see the swallow he took before saying, "Yeah. Well."

Sam's head swam. He needed more sleep, even if Dean didn't. The fluorescents in the laundry room were unforgiving, made them both look like zombies. But as usual, he couldn't pick the time when Dean might actually tell him something useful. Maybe because it was still so early, or because Sam had been having a nightmare, or because they'd be back out in the bush in a few hours. Take your pick. This was the opportunity Sam got.

"Doesn't come after guys with axes, you said. How do you know that? And why did it come after you in '97, if you were one of the guys with a big fucking axe?"

His voice was light, was trying not to antagonize. Dean wasn't cooperating, however.

"You wearing those Bama socks? 'Cause they really would help with the…" Dean gestured to Sam's feet, hanging off the side of the now-spinning washer. "Hope you're screefing front to back. You'll really fuck up your knee if you do it side to side." Dean tried a useless smile. "Loggers screef sites, too, you know. Get better purchase for -- "

"Dean," Sam warned.

The smile dropped and he looked away. "I can't explain it, Sam. It just shows up around this area, hungry. It's got my scent. Last time, it didn't seem to matter that I was with the loggers."

And 'last time' didn't sound quite the same as 'first time', but it was said so fast that Sam couldn't quite catch it, not before Dean continued.

"I scared it off," and Dean waved a hand. "Had a chainsaw, and that's a pretty powerful statement of intent. But…" His voice faltered. He'd been looking at Sam, a pitiful earnest expression on his face, obviously trying to make him understand and at the same time trying to allay Sam's fears. It so wasn't working, not on any level. Now he looked away. "That's when it started to go after the treeplanters. And…our camp cook."

Sam recognized what colored Dean's words and it made him ache. "You haven't mentioned…her?" Dean nodded. "You haven't mentioned her."

Dean sighed, rubbed his face again. "Didn't know until this week. She looked after me, up there."

And Sam knew what Dean wasn't saying: Logging was a pretty brutal gig for an eighteen-year-old, even one used to hunting ghouls and ghosts.

Dean smiled. "She was a real sweetheart. But three weeks after I left the camp, she got herself killed. Dave said all they found was blood," his voice dropped even lower, "and body parts. Cops thought it was a bear. With the planters, they just disappeared. But with Lori…" and his voice disappeared altogether. He chewed his lip for a moment. "It tore her apart."

"Maybe it _was_ a bear," Sam suggested softly.

"It wasn't a bear." So sure, still plenty left unsaid. Trying to get the straight goods from Dean was like cutting a diamond in the back of a bouncing pickup truck. "Yeah. The planters, though." Glanced up, one second, then back down. "Be careful around Lukas, Sam. I don't think it'll go for you…watch the girls, though."

"If it doesn't go for me, why the fuck would it go after you, Dean? You probably taste gamey as hell."

Followed by silence as Dean made a scientific study of the lino. Fear grabbed hold of Sam with a Rottweiler grip, hard, painful. Went in like icewater, came out like molten lead. "You want it to find you." His voice flattened. "Look at me."

And Dean looked at him.

"You want it to find you," he repeated, sure of Dean's attention.

Dean shook his head. "I don't _want_ any of this."

"So, you know how to kill it?" Okay, his voice was rising, but there wasn't much he could do about that. "Any ideas – at all? Dean, I'm not a little kid. This is what you always do, man! 'Sam, get the children outta here, I'm gonna get an electric shock that'll near kill me.'" It was a half-decent impersonation, but Dean wasn't laughing. "That's why you brought me up here? To protect the hippy chicks while you ring the dinner bell?" That prod was deliberate and it had effect.

Dean ran a hand across his head, absently rearranging his hair into spikes. "I gotta chainsaw, Sam. Thing'll have a hard time eating anything when it's missing a head."

"That's it? That's the idea?" And held up two hands, palms out as Dean looked murderously at him. "I can keep Lukas busy, make sure he doesn't know you're on the mountain until we've got a plan. If he's got it in for you…What the hell did you do to get him so interested in you?" Stopped, wanting an answer to that question.

The shrug, when it came after a lengthy silence, was infuriating. "I don't know Sam. It's not my fault, I didn't ask for it."

And that was as close to the truth as they'd come all night. Sam nodded. Dean never asked for it, and he always asked for it. "You don't need to face this alone, man. Lukas doesn't know you're on the mountain, not yet. We can stall a little, maybe do some research…"

Dean sighed like Sam was suggesting a knitting bee. "There's nothing to research, Sam. If it's a werewolf, it's operating on the world's weirdest moon cycle. We stall and more girls get killed. We got bait," and he put one hand on his own chest, "all we need is a working chainsaw. It's why I came up here, Sam. I've been thinking about this for _years_."

And clamped his mouth shut, hard. _That's it,_ Sam thought. _Admit it. This has been scaring the shit out of you for years. How many years, Dean? More than ten? How can I ask that question and have you stay in the room?_

Sam pushed himself back against the wall, the washer now rocking back and forth like a funfair ride. "Big bad wolf," he said, trying to keep eye contact.

"Big purple dinosaur," Dean fired back, not amused. "You're fucking obsessed." This time, he jumped down from the dryer, needing to move. Sam was getting to him and both knew it.

"No," Sam complained. "No, listen. It has to come from someplace, right?" But Dean had already rolled his eyes and was back to pacing, wrapped in his Easter-chick yellow serape.

"I'm not going to discuss fucking fairy tales, Sam. This is what we're stuck with."

"Aw, jeez, man, listen to yourself. _Look_ at yourself. Half the things that end up dead because of us _are_ fucking fairy tales. Credit where credit's due, dude."

Dean had perfected oblivious forward motion as a debating skill. "I want you to pack some weapons in that little sissy backpack of yours. Don't know that a gun will kill it, think we'll probably have to take off its head. The machete…"

"The machete," Sam repeated incredulously. "I'm going to strap the machete to my pack."

Dean nodded, entirely serious. "Probably this Luke guy –"

"Lukas," Sam corrected.

Dean's face said _whatever_ more eloquently than words. "Better to be prepared Sam. You'll probably be safe unless you go getting in its face, so stay away from him. He'll come across as pretty smooth," and right there, right _there_, something shifted in Dean and he stopped cold.

_Oh man, _Sam thought. _He's faced this thing more than once. More than once and he's not telling me. _ He knew Dean better than anyone, knew that if he asked directly he'd get a slammed door for his troubles.

"You keep calling it a wolf, Dean. Did it change? Did you see it change?" Jesus, surely that wasn't a difficult question? Simple yes or no.

Shrug, one shoulder, like it hurt. "Maybe." Sam was about to say something else, but Dean for once, beat him to it. "I don't remember, okay? Some of it…" and his voice trailed away just as the washer lurched into a loaded silence. "Stay the fuck away from him, okay? Just protect the girls-"

"How?" And that was the trick, wasn't it? A whole mountainside covered in rough terrain, deep slash, a dozen women at any given time, spread out over it. Only one way to protect the girls, which was exactly what Dean was proposing.

Ring the bell.

--

_Outside Olympia WA, 1997_

"You getting out here?" Uncle Goodenuff asked around the unlit cigarette jammed in the corner of his mouth. It didn't move, no matter how much Uncle G talked, which was a lot.

Dean had discovered this on the ride down from the Quasilit Valley, when he'd sat in one of the jump seats in the back of the king cab and Uncle G had regaled them with stories of fights, and drunken binges, and women you loved and ones you stayed the fuck away from, and the best places to catch Coho without a license.

Uncle G talked non-fucking-stop, as a matter of fact, which was a lucky thing, because it meant that Dean didn't have to say a word. He didn't feel like saying anything, not with Brent Proctor sitting next to him, and especially not with Ludovic the fucking Transylvanian Scout-eater in the front passenger seat.

A last minute shock, that Ludovic had asked for a ride down. Dean got the impression that Ludovic had been waiting to see which vehicle Dean had jumped into before hitting up Uncle G for a lift to town. The whole ride, the tall man been quiet, flicking his cold blue gaze to Dean in the back, fast like a snake's questing tongue, testing the air.

_Catching a scent._

Dean had one other distraction: Brent Proctor. _Screw Tacoma; you should hang with the guys, Dino. What, like you have something better to do? D'ya have a girl to get back to? Young buck like you? Must, eh? Maybe not, not with that baby face. C'mon, stick with us, we'll show you a good time._

So fucking annoying Uncle G had finally told Brent to leave Dean alone. Dean tried very hard not to say anything, but not because the asshole was getting to him, Brent he could handle. But Ludovic, European accent crematorium-soft, hands like the blades of a ceiling fan. He was something else altogether.

The truck pulled off the highway ten miles out of Olympia.

Uncle G skidded into a dirt parking lot, the kind that collected potholes and puddles that could swallow a Toyota whole, where several pickup trucks parked according to whim. Loggers leaned against the motley fleet, smoking, laughing. Many of them had weird-looking semi-automatic rifles in their hands and wore full camouflage gear.

The rendezvous point was Splatt Field & Supply, where Dave, Brent and about twelve other guys from the crew were going to spend the afternoon trying to kill each other with paint and then drink the night and probably the next day away in Olympia.

Uncle G was heading into his Tacoma office and would give anyone who needed it a drive; the crew's bull bucker was going to Seattle if anybody wanted to go. Uncle G stood beside his truck, eyed Dean as he got out. "So, Dino, where do you need dropped off? Or are you staying with these morons?"

_Make up your mind, Winchester._

Ludovic stood near, too near, long body resting against the door of Uncle G's white company truck, arms crossed, waiting to hear where Dean was going, what he was doing. He would come right to his doorstep if Dean showed him the way.

Only one thing to do. He shrugged, not looking at Ludovic, but glancing over at Brent. "Think Proctor's got a good idea. I've never been to one of these places before."

Ludovic sighed, pushed himself off the truck to hook up with the Seattle-bound bucker.

Dean released his breath slowly, turned back to see Uncle G reach into the truck, take out an overflowing binder. "Guess you want your pay, though," Uncle G smiled, face creasing like a cheap tablecloth, eyes buried in folds. "Cash okay?" A joke, that, and he handed over a thick envelope.

It wasn't sealed; unsure of etiquette, he peered inside. Uncle G laughed long and hard, likely at the expression on Dean's face. "You're doing good work, Kid. Keep it up and you'll be earning three times that in a couple of months."

Dean took out a fifty, then tapped the envelope once against his palm. "Can I ask you a favor?"

It was soon done, and Uncle G pulled out of the wet parking lot and Dean tried not to watch him because that was not only painful, it was pathetic. The Seattle-bound truck soon left with Ludovic and a few family men, and their departure meant that Dean's ass was effectively in the hands of this dog-eared crew, one of whom had made a point to rattle Dean's cage as loud and often as possible.

_All right_, Dean thought, following the crew into the Splatt Paintball office and seeing a wall of semi-automatic airguns hanging behind the counter. The guns had names like Eclipse E-Blade, ULE Automag and Matrix LCK. _Autococker_, for fuck's sake.

"So," Brent came up beside Dean, laid a hand on his shoulder. He smelled of rye whiskey already, had a huge gun against his shoulder, and several canisters of paintballs and compressed air attached to a crossed bandolier. He pumped the rifle's action once, seeming to enjoy the sensation. He looked like an idiot. "Think you can handle one of these babies?"

_Uh-huh_, Dean thought. _Abso-fucking-lutely_.

--

_Tacoma WA, 1997_

Sam slid the backpack from his shoulder; it was heavy with substantial, serious books – Chaucer (incomprehensible), Beowulf (fucking excellent) and the collected works of John Donne (depressing as hell). It was past five o'clock, weekend calling Sam's name, but he had an essay due on Monday, so he knew what he'd be up to.

Outside, the sky was gray, but it had been like that all week, shedding rain intermittently, making everything chilly and unpleasant. The landlord kept the apartment building cold and Sam walked around with a coat on most of the time. Some spring. In California it would be…don't think about California. Or Arizona, or New Mexico, or any of those places that Dad rarely took them. Supernatural stuff always seemed to live in the cold and damp. One more perk of the world's worst job.

So don't think about the sun.

Think about Dad, and whether he'd taken his meds, or whether he was getting well enough to refuse them. It was easier when he took them, Sam knew, because his father would be sleepy and confused. Would have no appetite, which fit conveniently with the fact they had next to no food.

When he was all doped up, John Winchester didn't usually notice that Dean had been gone for almost two weeks. Didn't ask, _Where the fuck is he?_

_He's out, Dad. Gone to the store. Had some stuff to do after school._ Finally: _He had to go away, Dad. _

_He didn't want to._ Sam had added that, for all it mattered to John. It mattered to Sam, somewhere deep down where he put all the things that he wanted to ignore. _He'll be back. He'll be back soon. He said._

Dean hadn't wanted to go, and Sam felt bad about how he hadn't even said a proper goodbye. _You'll be back soon, and then I can stop feeding Dad your crappy excuses, Dean. Get your ass back here._

Sam slid a finger down the crack in the door and peered in. His father was a dark hump on the bed, position defined by the white length of cast. Almost time for the next round of meds, which were running out faster than their meager food supplies. Sam looked over his shoulder to the kitchen-dining-living room. No TV to distract, no cable even if they had one.

He was getting a helluva lot of homework done, though. Had read a lot, sometimes even out loud to John. Sam secretly delighted in picking books he knew John would ultimately hate: _A Farewell to Arms,_ and _Flowers for Algernon_.

Sam got a glass of tap water and decided he could at least get dinner together. He was almost used to being hungry, but he'd rationed two slices of bread from the freezer and a couple of bologna rounds for dinner and he thought that now was as good a time as any to eat. Sam flicked on the pendant lamp over the table, thankful that utilities were included with the rent.

_You'll be back. With money._ Dad would freak if he called Pastor Jim. _We're not a friggin' charity, Sam._

A knock at the door and he startled. Fuck, not Kilcannon, abusive and grasping, wanting his money, wanting it now. Sam reckoned that Dean must have used every ounce of his considerable sweet-talk reserves for the landlord to be giving apartment 3B such a wide berth. The rent was coming up to a month overdue.

Too soft to be the landlord, Sam decided. He didn't bother checking the peephole – if it was a fucking zombie or other monster, Sam reckoned he'd direct it to Dad's bedroom and let them work it out.

Not a zombie, but a wiry man, face lined like a sailor's, cigarette tucked behind one ear, scraggly brown hair in a ponytail, whipcord arms in a white t-shirt like he didn't feel the cold. If he was collecting for some charity, he presented a pretty disconcerting front.

"Hi," the guy said, rummaging in his back pocket. "You Sam?"

"Why?" Sam asked, a little taken back.

"If you are, your brother asked me to drop something off." Direct stare, open. Just asking.

Dad would flip, which was one more reason to do it. "Yeah, I'm Sam. Where's Dean?"

"Oh, just goofing off with the guys. Said you needed this," and handed him a business-sized brown envelope with coffee stains decorating the outside. "He said that he'd try to come back next off-weekend, maybe two weeks from now. Wanted to know how your dad's doing." Waited, but Sam said nothing, mostly because his heart was in his fucking throat. Until this second, he didn't actually realize how much he'd been missing Dean, not just having food, or someone to coddle Dad through the worst of his tirades, but just…Dean.

The skinny creased guy was forced to ask again, more directly, like Sam was slightly dense. "Your dad's okay?" Sam nodded in surprise. "Okay, see yah 'round, kid." And left Sam in the doorway holding the envelope awkwardly, without enough presence of mind to say 'thanks'.

The envelope contained over a thousand dollars.

For a moment, Sam fingered the money, then he spread it out on the kitchen table, counting it again, wanting to be sure. Staring at the unfamiliar faces, touching them with one forefinger. Slipped between the bills was a note hastily scrawled on the back of an advertising flyer, bright splats of color. A paintball place in Olympia. _Goddamn you, Dean. _Dean's messy handwriting scrawled on the back in green pen.

_Go buy some food._

Sam didn't need to be told twice.

--

_Quasilit Valley WA, present day_

The sit of his belt was all wrong and it itched something fierce, so Dean cut the chainsaw's engine, pulled up, set the machine on a stump and glanced around: nothing but green and wet and the strong smell of two-stroke exhaust dissipating into the pervasive mulch of woodrot and loam. The ground was springy beneath his boots and he couldn't tell if it was sweat or rain that sluiced down his face until some found his eyes and it stung.

Pulling off one leather glove with his teeth, he dug around the belt, adjusting. Took a moment, hearing the distant sound of another chainsaw down the hill, to assess how close the next guy was and where his tree was likely going. He took off his helmet and his goggles and wiped his forehead with his chainsaw rag. _Probably have grease all over my face now._

For the last few days, since he'd seen Sam in Aberdeen, he'd been half-working, half-wondering when the wolf was going to show up. Sam had called on the satellite phone last night; Lukas had wandered off, apparently, hadn't shown up to work in a couple of days. No one was worried; he did this all the time, Sam had found out. So, what did that mean? Both of them wondered, Sam out loud, Dean to himself.

_Keep your eyes fucking peeled, that's what it means, Winchester._

"Hey!" and he turned to see Dave coming up the hill, safety vest glowing in the diffuse gray light of a midday pixilated with rain so fine you could hardly see it. "You okay?" Usually someone came looking if they hadn't heard your chainsaw for a few minutes. Dean had taken too long; most of the guys – with the exception of Willy, who was a lazy bastard – were careful about safety. Shit, they could get hammered and drive a fucking derelict truck across a goddamned minefield without seatbelts, but on the job? Different story.

"Fine," Dean said, noticing the expression on Dave's face. He wasn't here because Dean's saw was quiet. "What's up?"

"We gotta problem," and Dean's heart sank_. Someone was dead_. "They've taken to the trees."

Dean blinked his incomprehension. Then, relief. "What? You're joking."

The next cut block over, closer to the head of the valley where two mountains loomed over the river, the land was especially steep, not the protected patch of old growth, but the section right next to it. Apparently, close enough to some goddamned owl's nest that someone, somewhere – probably in a Seattle coffee shop – had decided that a good stiff dose of direct action was called for.

A quick ride in Dave's pickup truck up an incline that defied engineering norms, and Dean could see for himself what the problem was. Tipping his head up, if he stood right under the enormous red cedar, he saw the patterned soles of a pair of hiking boots. A chain. Flounced floral print, a Guatemalan woven hammock strung between two branches. About fifty feet up. _Shit_.

A group of twenty protestors stood around the tree, some with signs. Dean looked at Dave, who grinned back. "A problem," Dean said. "Yeah, I'd say that's a problem."

Brent Proctor and Pasquale huddled together, nursing steaming cups of coffee. One of the protestors had made a small fire and had a pot over it. Behind the cedar, several tents declared their intentions of staying put. Brent was already chatting with one of the squatters, a teenaged girl with long braids and a dozen friendship bracelets looped round her skinny wrists. All Dean could see was more wolfmeat.

"So, Dino," Brent broke away from his conversation, which was probably a pick-up, though Dean knew Brent's chances were slim to none. "Whatcha gonna do?"

"Me?" But Dave had come to find him. Had brought him here. A reputation was about to catch up with him, first signal being the name 'Dino' coming from Brent.

The ratfaced man, scraggly beard patched like a dog with mange, grinned crookedly. "Hey, you're the one with the golden tongue. Do your thing with the treehugger."

Dave stood beside them, tall and bluff. With two coffees, one of which he passed to Dean. Until the reporters and the company bosses showed up, there was no need for posturing and polemics. "Yeah, so Dean. How 'bout you earn that paycheck?"

Dean gulped the coffee – which was pretty damn good – and gave the empty mug to one of the protestors, turned back to Dave's truck, undoing his heavy utility belt and dropping it onto the front seat. Fifty feet up.

Thank god it was a cedar, not a fir, because it was fairly easy going. The calk boots helped; the cedar trunks weren't as heavily ridged as fir, were slippery, but the branches started lower down. One hand slipped. He should have used a safety harness, but if the damned protestor had got up there without one, he sure as hell wasn't going to disgrace the guys by bothering. And until a suit showed up to make him do otherwise, he was going to handle this his own way.

Dean grabbed the branch more tightly, looked three moves ahead, made sure he was heading in the right direction, had a clear path. "Hey!" he shouted when he was halfway up.

A face turned and looked down at him. An older woman, maybe in her late sixties, a straw hat festooned with plastic flowers battened to her head, and a bright purple rain poncho. She smiled at him and waved.

Dean cursed under his breath. One of those fucking Grannies, the ones that worked the protest circuits, sang goofy songs and generally caused mayhem at nuclear plants, military installations and logging sites. He remembered them from before. Must be into owls now. Hand over hand, up a few more feet, knowing this was a fruitless mission. He wasn't the right mediator for this. He wasn't a mediator in any sense of the word, in fact. Sam…now, Sam would have had a better chance, but he was across the valley, wasn't he?

Finally, if he stood on one branch and hooked an arm over another, he could look the Granny in the eye. She appeared happy to see him. "I'd offer tea," she said, opening a tartan-patterned thermos, "but I should really make this last. Besides, you just had a cup of coffee, didn't you?"

So she could see everything down below, wasn't nearsighted. Dean smiled, wondered how long he'd have to hang out here before he could go back down and report to Dave that his storied powers of persuasion weren't cutting any mustard with this old dame. "I'm Dean," he said.

"Eileen." The Granny poured, pulled a ziploc baggie filled with Fig Newtons from a canvas sack hanging beside her. Offered him one. "You been logging long, son?"

Oh, please, he really didn't want to get into an ideological discussion with her. He shook his head and she snapped back the cookie. "Not long," he replied, watching her sip the tea from the thermos's plastic lid. "I don't suppose you want to come down? I could help you."

She shook her head slowly. "Will you and your friends put down your chainsaws?"

_Lady, have you seen what's in the woods today?_ Dean shook his head, a rueful grin not far away. "Not my decision."

"Of course."

From this high up, Dean could see across the valley, saw the wide swath of destruction, land torn up like WWI Belgian trenches. "Had to ask," he explained.

"Well then."

"Listen, Eileen," because he actually wasn't all that interested in trees at the moment, "it's dangerous up here-"

"Dangerous for you and for other living creatures. The big companies don't care about you guys. They care about the profit margin." Her shrewd blue eyes bore into Dean, still merry, but also grave.

"Yeah, I know all that. The contractors down there," and he gestured with a thumb, not really minding the drop. He might hate flying, but it had nothing to do with heights. "They gotta make a living too." Shit, he was getting drawn into it. _This isn't why you're here, Winchester_.

"When all the trees are gone, there will be no more living to be had. And companies like Weyerhaeuser? They'll move on to the next thing, leaving you guys behind."

Lady, lady, lady. He wiped the rain from his face with one hand. "Yeah. Well, I'm a little worried, to tell you the truth. Some treeplanters have gone missing. And you're up here, all alone…"

Her look became stern. Okay, wrong tactic. Jesus, where was Sam when you needed him?

"Eileen," he pleaded, voice going soft, "you should come down. It's wet and cold and there are things worse than loggers around here."

She reached over, put a hand on his. It was warm. Of the two of them, she was the better equipped to spend a couple of days chained to a tree. "We've phoned the Seattle papers; the reporters will be coming soon. So will the company men, I should think. With their PR people. Pretty soon it will be nothing but rhetoric and invective, but we'll know the truth, won't we, Dean? I know you're not the enemy. Do visit again."

And that was that. He'd been dismissed from a _tree_.

On the way back down, Dean decided that this might be a good thing. Someone high up a tree at the crux of the valley, someone with sharp eyes and a reason to be watchful.

Then, unbidden, Sam's words: Big Bad Wolf. _Fuck_. But really, c'mon: it was unlikely an old bird like that would attract the attention of what hunted in this valley. As far as Dean knew, that thing was interested in him, and in taking out anything young and female if Dean was otherwise unavailable. Eileen would probably be safe enough up there with her tea and cookies, as long as that chain held and she didn't fall out of her hammock at night.

Jumping down the last few feet, he shook his head at Dave and the protestors clapped. When they started singing, Dean asked Dave to take him back to the section they were working, because although he appreciated Eileen's spunk well enough, if the others started in with "We Shall Overcome", he'd have to spark up the chainsaw and bring that tree down himself, Granny or not.

--

_Seattle WA, 1992_

Exactly twenty-five days now and one of two things had to happen. The first of those Dean sorrowfully struck off the list: three Fords, a Buick LeSabre, and a Jeep Wagoneer. No Impala. The sheeting rain and eleven o'clock gloom couldn't disguise what wasn't there.

Which only left the other thing.

He pulled up his collar and sniffed. A cold, on top of everything else. No fucking wonder. Sam was running a temperature and Dean had made him stay away from school. Then the little runt had tearfully informed him that Mrs. Legris would be _more_ _worried_, because she'd said she was already _very concerned_, and all of this left Dean with just two roads, one of which closed as of right this second.

_I don't have a choice_, he thought, wiping his nose on his sleeve. Only one reason Dad hadn't come home, and it was the same reason Dean hadn't phoned Pastor Jim, because he didn't want to know. There was knowing and there was _knowing_. He didn't want to be the one that told Sammy. His eyes prickled hot, and he bit the inside of his mouth, his Keds leaking, socks soaked, toes so cold he couldn't feel them.

_Move it, Winchester, keep moving. Enough of this._

Maybe one of those cars – he could smash the back window and…what? Grab a handful of CDs. _Great fucking plan, shitforbrains_. Even if he found a buyer, he'd make about five dollars, which would feed exactly a hamster. He kicked away a blown newspaper that tangled round his feet. He didn't feel hungry anymore; he knew that was probably not a good sign.

Worse yet, though, was that hacking cough of Sam's. He didn't mind so much being kept up at night with it, or that it meant school was out, that place where Sam at least would be warm and dry. It was just that it signaled 'time's up' in a way Dean could no longer ignore, meant that he had to do something, couldn't keep telling himself that Dad would be back.

He thought he was wandering aimlessly, but he wasn't, not really, because his mind was made up and all it required was setting pride and squeamishness at the door, stepping up and taking it like a man. Or something. He couldn't think about it too much, he knew, otherwise he'd never do it and he had to, so he thought about how cold he was and about how much he hated raccoons, because last night they'd made off with a perfectly good package of hotdogs Dean had stolen from the supermarket.

Couldn't do much more stealing, because he couldn't afford to get caught.

Eventually, as he knew he would, Dean approached the diner, hoped that Tanya wasn't working, because he didn't want to disappoint her, and didn't want to get talked out of the inevitable. Hadn't come for a free salmon burger. _Damn it, think of something else, Winchester_.

So he thought about the wad of cash in Anthony's hand, fifty bucks, more maybe, of how those assholes were taking care of themselves, no adult to help them, how they at least paid for their food. Didn't answer to anyone, called their own shots. Somewhere in his gut, he knew those were all lies, but he needed some cash to buy time, until he had the nerve to make the call, or the Impala showed up in the motel's parking lot.

But he couldn't wait anymore, so he pushed open the door and heard the bell overhead and tried to think about precisely nothing.

--

He didn't even meet her eyes, didn't wave hello, or come to the counter. As soon as Tanya saw him, she knew things had changed, that he'd crossed some line, or was about to, and it was like watching a car wreck in slow motion, watching that kid cross the diner floor. He left a trail of water, was soaked all the way through, lips a little blue.

Not looking at her, going straight to the table where Lamont and Noodles played cards for dimes, stood there, dripping on their menus.

"Hey!" she called, imagining her voice like a lasso, something that she could rope round him to drag him away. "Dean!"

But real life didn't work like that. Lamont looked up, said something that she couldn't hear, and she saw Dean's shoulders straighten. Fighting so hard.

It wasn't going to work, not the lasso or the fighting or the lure of hot food on a cold night. _Why is no one looking after this kid?_ she thought, so angry and hard it was actually painful.

Because that tall fucker, the one that was all howl, that was ravenous, was sitting in the corner, quiet. Waiting, like always, cold eyes darting around, searching.

Dean hadn't even sat down before the man unfolded, stood, came over. And Dean turned and Tanya couldn't look anymore, couldn't watch as he went with the man out the door into the night.

--

TBC


	5. Black Hole

**Chapter 5/**Black Hole

**The Suits:** have the complete right to claim ownership over the Winchesters. To my eternal sorrow, I _know_ that.

**Warning!** It's PG-13, but it's dancing a fine line. Gen, kids in dangerous situations, swearing, adult content, violence. WIP, will be 10 chapters.

**The Puppeteers:** Those two people with their hands up my back are Lemmypie and jmm0001. Without them, this would be a pitiful piece of crap. Period.

**Additional Culprit:** I have to thank Tiny Coward, because she was the one who read another story of mine, _Abracapocus_, and wanted clarification on two points: things that Dean had done for a bed, and why Sam might not like men to look at Dean in a certain way. Merci, my dear.

**Story Thus Far:**

Three intertwining stories about the wolves that hunt in the dark, whether in mountain forests or urban diners. Seattle, 1992: John has disappeared, Sam is sick and Dean, in a attempt to earn money, submits to the predations of an urban wolf. Five years later, Dean endures a rough initiation in a logging camp while Sam stays obliviously in town, tending to their injured father. At the camp, high in the mountains of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, Dean runs into the timber scout, Ludovic. Memories begin to surface, which Dean ruthlessly suppresses. In the present day, Dean and Sam are once again drawn to the Quasilit Valley by reports of vanishing treeplanters. Sam takes a job with the planters, while Dean resumes old friendships and conflicts at the logging camp. Slowly, Sam is coming to understand that Dean knows more about what's hunting in the forest than he's letting on…

--

_Quasilit Valley WA, present day_

Today was a good day. Today Sam planted 1,947 seedlings, and today in the mess tent after dinner Tommy wandered over with a beer, told Sam that some of the guys were playing a game of hacky sack outside and that he should join them. Under the table, Ruby squeezed Sam's thigh and he just about jumped three feet in the air.

A good day.

Theresa came in behind Tommy and sat across from them, hands big as oven mitts, teeth spaced daisy chain wide, and said that something was happening in the protestor's camp down the hill. Someone had gone missing. Ruby had left her hand on Sam's leg and he was acutely aware of it. Despite this distraction, he listened closely to Theresa but his eyes roved the tent. He'd seen Lukas earlier at dinner and earlier still on the block, but the highballer had kept his distance, not just from Sam, but from everyone.

Everyone except Ruby, which Sam didn't miss. It was part of the reason he hadn't stopped Ruby from doing things like setting a hand on his leg. Part of it, anyway. A strange and exhilarating dance, keeping Ruby close enough without leading her on. Sam sighed; he was totally leading her on, and he couldn't even in truth say that she wasn't his type. Dean was right and it was galling.

Right now, though, Sam couldn't see Lukas, though he'd been there an hour ago to scarf down about four gallons of lentil soup and two loaves of spelt bread.

"You want to go down to the camp, see what's up?" Sam asked Ruby. Her eyes sparkled; that would be a yes. A treeplanter's date: _wanna go hang out at the protest?_ "Give me a second, I'll grab a sweater," and he picked up her hand and laid it on the table. "Don't go anywhere."

Five minutes and one satellite phone call later, Sam and Ruby were on their way down the mountainside. Sam had convinced the crew boss to lend them one of the crew's open-backed trucks. A miracle it wasn't raining, just a calm early evening, bugs ridiculous, both of them stinking of repellent. Sam had noticed that the general organic vibe of the camp drew the line at bugs: you probably legally required some kind of pesticide license to use the stuff they slathered on like sunscreen at the beach.

During the past week, they had passed the protest village a number of times: a collection of ten or so tents, careful fires, a large number of increasingly sophisticated signs. Now, always, some van or other from one of the network feeds, and at least one company truck with a rep. A number of reporters, sometimes a cop. Sam hadn't seen or heard any news, but he gathered from camp talk that the Granny-Up-a-Tree story had some legs.

Now a Washington State Patrol vehicle was parked near the tree, and two tall troopers wandered among the protestors, chatting with them, notebooks pulled out, hats tucked under elbows. Enough people around that Sam and Ruby didn't stand out. The evening was still early, sun wouldn't go down for an hour or so, but the mountains cast shadows deep into the valley and the day was darker than it should have been.

Ruby jumped out the truck as soon as Sam stopped. She'd brought a plastic grocery bag filled with apples and sandwiches. For the Granny, she said, and pointed out a protestor, a girl with long braids, someone she knew from college. She leaned over, kissed Sam on the cheek and went to find out how to get the food up.

Sam waited in the driver's seat until another truck pulled into the clearing, this one splattered with mud and blaring some southern rock band that Sam recognized but couldn't name, and then he got out, happy to see his brother in one piece.

"Hey," Sam said, approaching. "How's your week going?"

Dean made a face. "It's going. Haven't seen a damn thing. Now a missing girl," and his voice stuck on something that made Sam wince. Guilt, mixed with anger. Dean's guilt was for himself, but some of the anger was for Sam, for talking him out of letting Lukas know that he was here.

And what had Sam's stall accomplished? Sam didn't have access to any resource materials, only the first hand accounts of the planters, and what they'd seen or hadn't seen when the two girls had gone missing. Lots of bears around this time of the year, never a cougar, not this season so far. No one knew much about Lukas, other than the fact he'd come to the Pacific Northwest sometime around the early part of the Yugoslav wars, maybe fifteen years ago or so, perhaps a refugee, perhaps a war criminal. That was sheer speculation, though. Lukas had apparently worked for several logging companies before becoming a planter. He was a strange one, a loner who could survive in the woods with a minimum of gear, who planted with cold precision, unbelievable stamina and legendary speed.

Dean shrugged when Sam told him all this, was already walking towards Ruby and her friend. Sam got in front of him, knew he'd have more luck when it came to questions. _Just shut up, Dean, let me do the talking._

"Hey, Ruby, you remember Dean?" and she darted Sam a surprised glance. So much for their date, or whatever she'd thought this trip to the camp was going to be about. "Who's this?"

Ruby introduced them to Astrid, and the tall protestor gravely shook hands with both Winchesters. "Sorry to hear about the girl who's gone missing," Sam started, but was interrupted.

"Heather's twenty-two. She's not a girl." Astrid appeared to have been made from telephone wire and vinegar, as cuddly as a blackberry bush.

Okay. Now he really had to make sure Dean didn't open his mouth or this was all going to go to hell in a handbasket. He stepped back onto Dean's toe, but his brother was wearing steel-capped boots and the gesture was probably lost on him. "Sure. So what do you think happened?"

Astrid shrugged. "No one has any idea. She was out last night, went to scout out some trees for…" and her hard stare landed on Dean, took in his grease-smeared plaid shirt and big boots and knew right away which side he was on. "Went out and then no one heard anything else. Nothing. Just wandered off. Maybe she went back down with a group that left early this morning. That's what the cops are checking." And she gestured to the cops and she didn't like them any more than Dean usually did. Common ground there.

"Hey, Ruby, that some food for Eileen?" Dean asked suddenly, his deep voice an aggressive bark. He slapped a biting mosquito on his arm. Sam wondered if he shouldn't just find a little owl and let Dean snap its neck to complete the picture of insensitive logger. "Why don't you let me take it up?"

Sure, she was going to let him do _that_. Dean flicked a glance to Sam: _What? What did I say?_

Sam cleared his throat. "Dean, do you think the, er, company would let you _do_ that?" And sure enough, one of the logging corporation trucks was right next to the Granny's cedar, monitoring who was having access to the Granny. One of their own contract fallers bringing food up to a protestor might not paint the right picture.

"Okay," Dean said blandly. "You do it. I got some calk boots in the truck."

Astrid crossed her arms. "Eileen has a basket; we can ask her to lower it."

"A hand delivery is so much more personal," Dean smiled tightly and Sam grabbed his arm, marched him towards the truck like a cop with his collar.

"Eileen's got dynamite eyesight and a pretty good view of these woods," Dean hissed, wrenching his elbow away as soon as they were by the truck. "Maybe she saw something."

Sometimes, Dean surprised the shit out of Sam. "You _know_ her?"

Dean wasn't looking at him, he was buried in the back of the truck's cab, throwing around ropes and a red toolbox and a bunch of plaid and denim clothing. Finally, he withdrew, holding a pair of boots. "They're Dave's, but he has monster feet just like you."

"Dean, she's gotta be parked at fifty feet." Might as well say it. "It's a long way up."

That killer grin. "Great view, like I said. Went up a few days ago. It's not hard." And as they walked back to the tree under the watchful eye of the logging corporation's media relations officer, Dean gave Sam some tree-climbing tips: plan your moves, test the weight, dig in. _If an old lady can do it, Sam Winchester, don't let me hear…_and Sam waved a hand at him, signaling 'shut up'.

A small tug, and Ruby was on his arm, handing him the food bag, all smiles and Sam couldn't look at Dean for fear of needing to smack away whatever expression was on his face. "Tell her I think what she's doing is great," Ruby said softly, meaning the whisper to be in his ear, but Sam was too tall for most people to do that, so Dean inevitably heard everything. Sam tied the bag to his belt and it swung awkwardly. Maybe he should have brought his backpack.

"What she's doing is crazy, not to mention illegal," Dean muttered.

Sam started to climb, not wanting to get involved in the argument that was now bound to erupt. He could make out Dean's amused rumble and Ruby's sharp retorts for a number of feet, but then he needed to concentrate because he'd kill himself if he fell from this height. He shook his hair out of his eyes, both hands occupied with the patently unsafe task ahead. This was insanity.

Not to mention that night was fast approaching, so he'd have to make it a short with the Granny unless he wanted to add to the difficulty level by climbing down in the dark.

Unfortunately, the Granny had been up the tree for several days now and appeared to be starved for company.

"Thank god you've come," were the first words out her mouth, which twitched slightly. Sam couldn't afford her much attention at the moment because he was trying to find a spot where he could safely perch. When he felt moderately secure, or at least as secure as you could five stories up in a tree when a slight breeze swayed the known world, he looked around. She'd set herself up all right: hammock, food basket, a large plastic water container with a red spigot tied to one branch, a blue tarp spread over top to repel the rain, and enough outerwear options to fill an L.L. Bean mail order catalog.

"Eileen, right? I'm Sam, my brother Dean says he was up here a few days ago," and he gestured down to where he could see Dean and Ruby almost directly below. From this angle, Ruby's arms were flapping so much she looked like she might take off. Dean had his arms crossed, and he suddenly looked up, shaded his eyes against the angle of the low sun. Sam waved, and then felt foolish. Dean looked away, maybe in disgust.

"He was very nice." Sam wondered if she was losing it up here, because 'nice' was not a word most protestors would associate with Dean. "Are you a logger too?" the Granny asked.

Sam undid the bag from his belt which was a slightly scary proposition considering that he needed two hands to do it. He handed it over and shook his head. "No, I'm planting the other side of the valley with Ruby there," and he pointed again. Ruby was looking up at them and she waved. Eileen waved back this time.

The woman nodded her thanks for the food and placed it in another hanging bag. "Your brother warned me," Eileen said suddenly and Sam was surprised by the shake in her voice. In no way did she seem like someone who rattled easily. "He said there was something dangerous in the woods."

Sam swallowed, a crack of unexpected fear buzzing through nerve endings. Up till now, just Dean and his evasions. But this was third party corroboration. "What did you see?"

"It's what I heard," she whispered. "Heather was going to chain herself to a tree today, but wanted to be lower down, take advantage of the news cameras. She was trying to decide which tree. I watched her." She stopped suddenly and Sam said nothing, didn't know if that would be encouraging enough. He thought it might be.

He was right.

"There was something in the shadows…I didn't see it directly; we're coming up to the new moon and there's precious little light. Even so, I saw Heather, and I saw something that seemed light colored, but then a little while later, darker. And it…" she wasn't precisely frightened, Sam realized, just trying to find the right way to describe it. "It made a rasping noise."

"Rasping?" Sam repeated, when it seemed Eileen wasn't going to give him much else.

Eileen clutched her throat, dragged her fingers down it. "Like that."

A naked man changing into wolf form? Sam guessed, but he was only guessing. New moon. What werewolf changed at the new moon? "What about Heather?"

Eileen shrugged. "It seemed to be tailing her, but she was too far away for me to shout a warning." Her eyes said, _And what would I have shouted?_

"Where did you last see it?" he asked and Eileen gestured for him to come closer. It meant literally going further out on a limb than he felt safe doing, but she was pointing through a break in the cedar branches that he couldn't see from where he was. He inched along and Eileen finally grabbed his hand and pulled him.

"Oh," she said in surprise.

Someone was standing in the clearing she'd been pointing out. Someone tall, blond hair tied back, dressed in blue and khaki, moving towards the protestors camp like a cat, all sinew and stealth. Lukas, Sam thought.

And looked down fifty feet, where his brother was still arguing with Ruby, oblivious.

--

_Quasilit Valley WA, 1997_

Okay, maybe annihilating Brent with paintballs hadn't been the smartest idea in the world, but it sure felt good at the time. Shooting something, anything, but _especially_ Brent Proctor, had taken away some of the shit of the last two weeks.

Not that Brent had stayed dead, not even when he was supposed to. He'd jumped back up, all Dean's teammates shouting at him to stay down. Dumbass fucker. Dean had pointed out to Brent that he was already dead each time he shot him.

Traveling at high velocity, those little paintballs left huge welts when fired directly onto exposed skin and Brent had been walking around with a big red mark right in the middle of his forehead for a week now. It wasn't the only place Dean had got him, only the most obvious and the one that had provoked the most ribbing from the other guys.

The rest of the crew had chanted 'Kid, Kid, Kid' and bought him rounds at the Cut Anchor while Brent had glowered.

Retaliation was a given.

Sun low in the sky, Dean looked around the clear cut, a horrific mangle of saplings and shredded earth and stumps and salal. Like standing at ground zero in Hiroshima. He was incredibly hungry mostly because his lunch had been sabotaged beyond his ability to salvage and it was now dinnertime. New cuts and bruises ran up his arms and down his legs, the legacy of various 'accidents'. Neither lunches nor bruises were Dean's present problem, though.

The crew trucks were way down in the valley, heading towards camp, kicking up plumes of dust, sun glinting off their whiteness like beacons of civilization in this wilderness.

_Without him._

Dean didn't know what had happened, not really, but when he got back to camp, he was pretty sure he'd hear something along the lines of: _Hey, sorry Kid, thought that you'd come down in the other truck. Our mistake._

Fuck, it was a long trek back to camp and he had the saw with him and his heavy belt. He balled his hands on his hips, watching the last white pickup truck scramble like a Tonka toy in the distance, too far away to see or hear him. Running after it completely pointless.

"Fuck you Brent fucking Proctor!" he shouted and drop-kicked his helmet as far as he could. His breath came ragged for a few minutes as he collected himself. Camp was a twenty-minute drive through rough terrain. How long to walk?

Long enough to think of a dozen different ways to fuck up Brent Proctor, that's what. The helmet was long gone, no sense in trying to find it. It would be dark soon and if he lost the road somehow, he would be in serious trouble. They'd sighted lots of bear over the last week, coming down through the cuts looking for food. Young males, hungry, landless, without fear. At least it wasn't raining, but clear skies meant cold evenings. And the bugs were diabolical.

Nothing for it, so he started the descent.

For a few miles, it was okay. He went fast enough to outdistance the worst of the bugs, but the chainsaw was close to seventeen pounds and he considered leaving it behind. It wasn't his, though, and it was an expensive Stihl 066, an upgraded loan from Uncle G. So he balanced it across one shoulder and shuffled down the hillside, the spikes so handy for keeping your feet when scrambling over slash now a complete nightmare on the dirt road, tripping him up.

He was bathed in sweat, but cold, because the mountain air was cooling rapidly. He tried not to swear, but soon he was chanting obscenities under his breath, a marching tune of the damned.

A deep metallic _toc_ in the far woods, a black jumping hop in the slash. _Raven_. Five of them, wheeling and huge, finding small rodents in the cut. What a racket. They hopped and fought each other for something bloody and furry and Dean stopped, watching them. _Tricksters_, he thought, recalling local legends, and smiled.

Turned to keep up his steady pace and froze. Ludovic was twenty feet in front of him.

He hadn't been there a moment ago, had simply appeared like a mirage, glowing with the fading sun, calm and serene and somehow breathtakingly deadly. The ravens_ toc toc tocced_ and flew off. Ludovic followed their flight, then turned his attention back to Dean.

Dean felt himself vibrate like one of those freaky tuning forks, struck but not yet pressed to a hard surface where he'd make a noise. Mute.

Ludovic smiled slowly, took a step. Then another.

Dean backed up and Ludovic halted quietly, waiting.

"Dean," Ludovic said, the accent like sand swirling in a tin basin, panning for gold nuggets. "All alone again."

_Blood_. Dean remembered blood. And that voice, the circling scrape of sand and the silk of an executioner's blindfold. Another step back. _Jesus Christ_, he whispered and for once in his life, might even mean it. He dug deep for anything that might help, because here, completely alone on the cut block, facing this, he was _scared_. And he didn't know why, goddamn it, didn't quite know the reason for it.

"Back off," he growled, but it sounded far away. For a moment, he doubted whether he'd actually said it. But then Ludovic held his arms out like a hostage negotiator, maybe to show that he was unarmed. That was ludicrous; he was armed to the teeth.

"Just me," Ludovic replied. The sun sat halfway across the horizon and Dean knew if he watched it, he'd be able to track its descent. Ludovic's arms dropped and Dean suddenly knew that the timber scout was capable of incredible speed, that he could move unnaturally fast. Knew it because he'd witnessed that before. _I've seen him run before_, Dean thought.

Ludovic shook his head slightly. A good half-foot taller than Dean, more than a fifty pounds difference, likely. A reach like an orangutan. _Stay out of his reach because he'll grab. _Remembered those fingers in his hair, snapping his head back like a Pez dispenser.

Ludovic tilted his head to the side, curious maybe. His nostrils flared and Dean's stomach rolled like a little boat far at sea. _Getting my scent._

"You don't remember, do you?"

_Don't say anything._ Dean recognized his father's voice inside his head. Dean's words, but Dad's voice, snapped on like a kid's nightlight. So fucking weird, because Dad's advice usually consisted of recommending firearms.

Ludovic was very still, but that only reminded Dean of the motion, did nothing to allay any fears. "You took a long time to come back," Ludovic murmured

Dean swallowed hard, felt sick. Night. Seattle. Rain and Sam's cough and the abandoned car. Tanya, salmon burgers, chocolate milk. Mrs Fucking Legris. Hunger and need and no choice. Hunger and desire and howling need to consume whole, to envelop, to own, to possess utterly.

_Oh fuck_, Dean thought, trying to shut it down, because none of it was helping, but too late, here it comes – _night alley, dark as a Black Hole, slamming car door, hotwettalk, fingers and hair – and grinding and rasping, wet like raw meat, a tongue caught between teeth, and bloodbloodblood. _

He staggered back a step, overwhelmed and exposed. Again, he felt ill, his stomach dropping, that hot tight ache across his face as he flushed.

_What had stopped it then? I'm still here, so something must have stopped it, right?_

And realized, right then, that he had a chainsaw in his hand.

_So fuck this loser_, he thought and pulled the cord. The machine was still warm, didn't need primed and was coddled like a royal baby. It started without hesitation, revved up at a hundred kph, with the same attention-getting force as an AK-47. Ludovic faltered, but Dean couldn't see his face anymore because the sun had gone behind the hills. Just a moment, then Ludovic crouched deep down, bent unnaturally at the knees, arms long against the dirt road, and moved as fast as Dean remembered. Swept into the bush beside the road, low as a hunting cat.

Without the ear protectors, starting up the Stihl was like having a Harley Davidson in your hands, and twice as loud. So Dean didn't hear the truck, only saw the sweep of lights and by the time his dazzled eyes looked for Ludovic, he was gone.

He cut the engine and Uncle G jumped from the cab, smile white against his dark face, gestured to the chainsaw. "I have no idea what you think you're doing, Dino, but Proctor's a prick and you shouldn't be out here alone, cutting up whatever shit you think should be cut up in the dark on a clear cut."

And Dean had never been so glad to see anyone in his entire life.

--

_Quasilit Valley, present day_

Getting down the tree took less time than going up for two reasons: gravity and fear.

Sam slid some, swung some and basically bounced down the tree like he'd been dropped. He'd seen how fast Lukas was moving, had seen him in the field, and knew he'd never get down in time. Still, he didn't see him now, couldn't see much actually, needed to concentrate. He shouted his brother's name and Dean looked up; in the darkening evening gloom, Sam couldn't make out his expression.

Still no Lukas; maybe he was in the bushes, looking, not attacking?

"Dean," Sam repeated, dropping to the forest floor. "I saw Lukas, over there," and peered round, past the tents.

Both Ruby and Dean looked at him impassively. Well, Ruby more confused than impassive. "Lukas gets around," she said. "It's nothing for him to hike down here from the planting camp. What's the big deal?"

"'Bout time," Dean growled, and Sam didn't see any fear or hesitation. Didn't mean it wasn't there.

"Dean," Sam's voice dropped and he laid one arm on Dean's sleeve and felt a shiver pass through him. "Dean, get out of here." Sam moved his big hand to Dean's shoulder, pulled him round and pushed him towards the truck, crowding him from behind, moving him. He didn't resist like Sam thought he might.

Dave's truck was unlocked and Dean rested one foot on the step to the cab, the interior light hitting his face.

"Go," Sam said, and Dean's gaze flickered behind them, then met Sam's. "I mean it."

Dean's lips pursed, wondering maybe, if he should push it. "I got a radio transmitter in the cab, and a chainsaw in the back," he said to Sam, cat-tongue rough. "I'm so fucking fine with all this, it'll make you crazy."

Well, it would, he was right about that. But nowhere in the known universe was Dean _fine_ with this. And he didn't look like he was going to go anywhere, was still leaning casually against the open door, and Sam realized that he was _presenting_ himself, was daring Lukas to see him, mark which logging company he was with. _Oh, Dean_.

Dean stared at Ruby like he was going to lick her or something, which must have made her slightly uncomfortable, because she squeezed Sam's upper arm and walked towards where Astrid was talking to a reporter.

"Sam, don't go all girlie on me," Dean warned, but he was smiling which somehow made it worse. "I can handle this."

Really? Sam knew that he could get Dean out of here with just a few words, and he said them. "So, tell me. Ninety-seven was the last time you faced this thing. When was the first?" He hated the fear that hovered in Dean's eyes, but that question would either result in some needed information, or Dean getting himself to safety, and either of those things was A-OK with Sam.

"I told you: 1997." But wouldn't look at him. Shook his head, crossed his arms, shivered and Sam could see it. "And, yeah. It changes. You could call it a wolf." And swung up into the cab, slammed the door. Through the open window Sam laid a hand on Dean's forearm, knew he had that worried expression on his face, the one that made Dean mental.

"Dean?" Sam asked, a whisper.

Dean nodded as though Sam had answered a question correctly. "I'm going to kill this thing." Bald statement, inevitable as a Black Hole, said in the sort of voice that you didn't argue with. "You gotta radio in your truck?" As though he hadn't said the first thing, the thing that meant _I'm scared_ and _I'm furious_ and _Don't stand in my way_.

Sam opened his mouth, unsure. This was a difficult Dean to deal with: hiding and sore and angrier than Sam could ever remember. And not answering any questions. The idea of giving Dean some space to turn around in was a good one, and one that required time, which was the last thing they actually had. Still, the only other option was to argue, and that got Sam precisely nowhere with his brother.

So he rubbed his mouth with one hand, sighed and knew Dean would understand that he was giving him room. But that he also had his measure. If Dean wanted to talk about radios, they could talk about radios. Ruby had briefed Sam on logging road etiquette and radio transmissions; the radio took the place of all usual traffic rules on logging roads. Of course they had one. "Yeah."

"Well, you'll know when I'm back in camp then." He met Sam's stare. They were level with each other, Dean in the cab and Sam with his height. Dean then made the world's most half-assed attempt to mollify his brother. "Don't worry."

_God, yeah, I'll be sleeping like a baby, Dean._ "I'll be listening," he said instead, holding Dean to it, and Dean started the truck.

--

_Seattle WA, 1992_

_Front seat, back seat, what did it matter? Let's get this over with._

The guy pulled open the passenger side door like he was a chauffeur, and Dean couldn't even look at him, he was shaking so badly. He forced himself to get in. It's a dry place, he thought, because he was soaked right through, brought his cold wet place with him, wore it as a second skin. No getting dry tonight.

Silence as the man – who Dean thought of as 'the Wolf' because of how he moved and the pitiless stare – came around the other side of the luxury car. A Cadillac, for god's sake. In a black alley in the pouring rain in this part of town and no one was going to save him now.

_Shutupshutupshutup_, he whispered between clattering teeth.

The Wolf opened the back door, driver's side, and got in behind Dean. Slammed the door and the red plush interior plunged into sudden blackness. Dean whipped his head around, surprised, not liking the sensation of someone behind him. What the fuck? Wolf hadn't said a word, like they already had some kind of arrangement, an agreement. This false intimacy made Dean feel dirty, somehow, beyond the obvious.

_Just you wait, Winchester._ And he pushed that voice down, hard.

The Wolf's eyes were very blue, Dean remembered, but he couldn't see that now, because it was so dark. The soft velvet car upholstery grabbed at his pants, at the back of his sopping jacket as he turned in the seat, trying to figure out what was going on.

The Wolf was just a shadow against blackness. "Don't turn around," he said, softly but curt, and then, like a sliver of glass pressed against a throat, "_Dean_."

Tanya had shouted it across the restaurant. Fuck, what did it matter now? What did anything matter now?

Dean turned to the front, could only see oily wet blackness in front, a pale smudge of his own face reflected back from the passenger side window. Inside the car, the air warmed slightly, smelled of dog hair and meat. Like being inside the belly of an animal. The Wolf rustled in the back, the sound of clothes being removed, the metallic run of a zipper being drawn down. Dean closed his eyes for moment, a bitter bile on his tongue, then the salty taste of blood. He'd bitten the inside of his mouth. It didn't hurt.

He put one hand inside his jeans pocket. He had a knife. He'd left the gun with Sam, of course, and Sam had taken it in feverish hands, eyes owl big and solemn. _Just don't fucking shoot me when I get back_, he'd said to the kid. Now thought: _I'll probably want to do that myself._

"So," and was surprised at how steady his voice sounded. "So, how much money are we talking here?"

Then, right by his ear, breath warm, close enough that Dean felt the glide of teeth, "How much do you need?"

Oh, Christ, he was not going to be able to do this, knew it right then.

"Fifty, usually. But you?" and the voice receded, but Dean's galloping heart just kept right on going. "Anything you want."

"I want to see the money now," Dean replied, didn't know where this reasonable, matter-of-fact voice of his was coming from, because it wasn't the one in his head.

More soft crumplings of cloth and leather, and a tearing noise, paper thin. A bare arm snaked over the back, the hand running over Dean's shoulder like a rodent, one thumb stroking inquiringly across his neck before showing Dean what was in the hand: half a one hundred dollar bill.

"Half now," the Wolf said, his voice like soft fabric, a caress, "the other half is in my pocket. You can have it when we're done."

Jesus. Smart asshole, okay. Dean snatched the half-bill from the hand, cringing and mad and just so…_trapped_. He continued biting his mouth, something to do, something that he had control over.

_Let's get this over with_, he thought, clearly, suddenly empty of all the anger and fear and shame, just done with it all. He was here, now, and had a job and a responsibility and there was no point, no point whatsoever, in questioning any of it, or being a fucking baby about it.

"What do I do?" he asked. _This'll be over soon, and I'll look back and…and I'll never look back on this, not ever._ A sudden gasp came from the back, and the Wolf's hands were on the back of Dean's head, moving like it was trying to find something. Fingers on his ear, circling his temple, through his hair, questing, searching, _knowing_. _Oh, man, this was – shut up. Just shut up,_ he told himself roughly, biting hard.

"Keep talking," Wolf whispered, thin, like he was clenching his teeth. A thumb dug into the hollow at the base of Dean's skull, pressing hard. "Just…keep talking."

_About what?_ But he knew it didn't matter, this guy just wanted to do whatever he was going to do and somehow Dean talking was part of it. But if he thought he'd get Dean's true voice, the one that knew everything about all he was, all those strange and wonderful things that actually turned Dean on…well, no way. That was _private_ in a way that his body, apparently, was not.

So, fine.

"Season's really going to be a good one, I think. Ken Griffey Jr's got such a sweet swing, arm like a cannon. No one's gonna touch him in the outfield. All-Star, definitely. And maybe Edgar Martinez too, big guy, few words, you gotta like that. They really should think about a new field, though, the Kingdome is a piece of crap…" His ability to talk baseball was neutral and pretty much inexhaustible.

Something was happening in the backseat, though, and Dean both tried to figure it out and didn't want to figure it out, didn't want to have an imagination about any of this. A hand was still on his head and the Wolf was now pressing his mouth against the back of Dean's neck and Dean's voice sped up, "…and Buhner's not bad, a bit of a sack of cement, don't think he'll amount to much. Randy Johnson, though. What a fucking freak of nature, looks like that dude from the Headless Horseman, Ichabod whatever…"

A noise like the Wolf was gargling, or swallowing his tongue, a harsh breathy, wet noise, smell of meat overpowering, the hand splayed over Dean's skull, nails digging in, face wet against the nape of his neck.

"…calling him the Big Unit, what a crock of shit, always think they're calling him the Big Eunuch, which cracks me the fuck up, cause he doesn't look like he could get a date to save his life and that hair of his? Man, worse than…" and couldn't say Sam's name here and now, couldn't, "…just that fucked-up long in the back, looks like it's attached to his cap, what a storky freak…"

Nails really digging in, hard enough to hurt, and Dean flinched, tried to move, couldn't.

_Hush, darling, hush,_ and Dean's baseball talk faltered, dropped away like a motorcycle disappearing down a stretch of highway. Oh god, and for the first time that night he felt tears in his eyes. _Hush, don't talk to it. Shshshshsh._ This wasn't Dad's voice, advising him to take his fucking knife out and slash this asshole behind him. This was…this was…and he hadn't heard this voice for so long, for almost ten years and why was she here now?

"Keep…" and the Wolf's tongue was too close, the words mangled hopelessly, almost not human, "keep…go…"

_Shhhsh, baby, you should get out of here…_

Almost too fast to follow, certainly too fast for thought, Dean pulled out the knife, a switchblade that he'd already been warned not to bring to school, brought it out and turned quickly, wanting the thing behind him _dead_.

And was not fast enough.

The hand bunched in Dean's too-long-for-him hair and pulled his head back against the bench seat, the other hand grabbing his chest, pulling him over, nails not nails but claws, the skin of bare arms giving way to coarse gray hair, the teeth sharper than any human's and fuck it, _fuck it_, if Dean didn't suddenly _get_ it.

This was more than some creep who liked his boys. Way more.

He slashed the knife against the claws holding his jacket, pulled away, leaving his jacket behind, smashing the car door handle with his foot, getting it open, cold slash of night cutting the carnal air, blood all over the place, fuck it, whose? Feet spinning in the air as he was lifted, the car dome light suddenly ON and goddamn, he'd seen one or two weird things in his life, but this took the fucking cake.

Despite the teeth buried in his shoulder, on his neck, the slaver of wolf-goo all down him, maybe rain, maybe blood, who the fuck knew? – he still had the knife, brought it down and across again and again, but didn't know if he was hitting anything or hitting himself, blood in his eyes now, but there was a sudden slackness, an opportunity, and goddamn it if Dean wasn't going to take it.

No jacket, only a t-shirt and that ripped to shreds, and he wheeled out the door, slamming it, and ran. Ran down the alley, skidded out the end as he looked over his shoulder to see the loping speed of the thing that followed him, only one glance because if he stopped to look, it would have him.

Ran, and running, could only think of one place to go.

--

TBC


	6. Safe

**Red**

**Chapter 6/Safe**

**Rating**: Gen, PG-13. Can't throw a brick at this one without hitting swearing, oblique and sometimes disturbing sexual content, violence of the Dean-shredding variety, and one nasty-ass Wolf. WIP, will be 10 chapters.

**Big small print:** Mutilate, agitate and titillate. Don't own 'em.

**Blessed are those**: I say it every freakin' time and it begins to sound rote, but _really_. Lemmypie and jmm0001 rock my world and if you like what you read, thank them, not me.

_Seattle WA, 1992_

Well, that qualified as the shittiest shift on record, ever. _Tomorrow morning, swear to god, I'm handing in my notice, going back to Evergreen, getting an MFA and making candles on the San Juans. Swear to god._

Every sugar jar empty, what the hell were those kids doing with them? Just pouring sugar into their pockets? Shit. The boss was going to have a fit. Julio already gone, second job working janitorial at a downtown office, already stuck here till past midnight. Busy, mindless, end of shift work: all the jars topped up, and the salt and peppers, cloths soaking in the bleach water, day's take counted, ready for Tanya to put in the office safe.

Shitty shift, shitty night. Forty to the left, 21, all the way around, seven, seven. Money in, slam door, twirl knob, back out. She banged her head against the desktop backing out from under it, where the safe was. Mind snagged on the word 'safe'. Head rang, but she was out of tears tonight. After the boy – _Dean_, she reminded herself, not some random kid, but one with a name, one who mattered – had left, she'd gone to the bathroom and had a cry, the kind where you got hiccups.

So, no more.

Tanya wanted a drink. She was meeting Tobi at her place, half an hour, had told her to make sure the beer was cold and invited herself overnight because she wanted nothing more than to get completely anaesthetized, fall apart, and sleep. _Don't think about it_, she told herself. She closed the cupboard under the office desk, looked out the office door into the kitchen. Julio had left it clean as a whistle, no flies on him. Boss should give him a raise, or he'd be hauling ass to some other joint soon.

Where did she leave her bag? Oh, there, under the pass-through. She'd go out the back door, nearer to where she'd parked her piece of shit Dodge Dart.

The front door rattled furiously, someone trying the handle with unmitigated desperation. Shit, who wanted a cup of coffee that badly? Couldn't they read the closed sign?

She was looking through the kitchen into the front diner when the restaurant's plate glass front window splintered and smashed, shards of glass flying like a burst of grasshoppers in a summer meadow. Beautiful, her artist's eye noticed, not putting it all together, the glass and the shimmer of streetlight, not yet reasoning why the glass might be shattering.

Just one second, though, because she wasn't a dummy. One hand to pick up the phone on the desk, dial 911. The other to reach under and grab the gun that the boss kept there, for reasons just like this. Fucking cracked out junkies looking to score.

_I'm not a violent person_, she protested. She knew how to load it, though, and did. Clip over there, in the cardboard box on top of the filing cabinet. Took her five seconds. _Screw Julio, I'm the one who needs a raise. Except I'm quitting_. Didn't talk in the receiver as she heard the operator say, "9-1-1. What's your emergency?"

Mostly because the boy, the kid, _Dean_, was standing in the doorway, staring at her and the pointed gun.

He was slicked with blood and his t-shirt, which had some kind of local team's logo on it, the kind they gave out free at community center events, was splattered and torn. Face skim milk blue, freckles peppered on, buckshot random. Eyes so big and so wild and he didn't say a word. Only one second and she lowered the gun.

She didn't want to scare him, he was already there.

_Oh, baby_, she thought. Shit. She picked up the phone and said, softly, "Police. Now." And put it down on the desk, but didn't hang up. Then she ran over to him, grabbed his shoulders, saw that he had a knife in his bloody hand and didn't know if calling the police had been the brightest idea, but she'd work it out. If he'd killed that trick, it had been self-defense if anything.

Blood not just on him, but _from_ him too, long scrapes along his shoulder and neck, blood running down his face from some wound on his scalp.

He looked over his shoulder to the broken glass and the rain washed street beyond, a warning in the gesture. Not alone.

"Out the back," she whispered, and he looked behind him again. Tanya tried to see outside to the street through the window Dean had smashed to get in, but couldn't see anything in the rain and the night. A bad angle too, but she didn't want to go out into the dining area. In the kitchen, she had light. Had a way of escaping. Of allowing him to escape.

She didn't say anything else, just pushed him toward the heavy back door, a relic of the 1930s, rum running times, the gun still in her hand. The cops would be here soon. She didn't fault them that; they usually showed up fast, even if they didn't care when they got here. Maybe the kid had killed the guy; he probably deserved it, the creep. Maybe the trick had followed him here, was outside the front, looking for revenge. In either case, Dean had his little brother to think of, and Tanya didn't want to bring the cops down on him.

The bolt on the backdoor was jammed; she slammed her hand against it, realized as she did so that she was close to freaking out. _Be strong_, she said to herself. _He needs someone to be strong._ He was shaking so hard she could see it, but his knuckles were white around that knife.

More tinkling of glass from the front. Oh, shit. Tanya sensed something moving outside rather than saw it, the lights in the front of house already dimmed for the night, the neon sign flashing closed the only thing illuminating anything and that was close to useless.

From beyond her line of vision came a harsh long breath, wet and rasping. _Fucking hell, what was that?_

She shoved Dean hard out the door and he stared blankly back at her, beyond any reasoning, or words of comfort, rain sluicing the blood down the shirt like a nasty attempt at tie-dyeing. She held up the gun, showing it to him, felt like something out of a movie. _Don't worry about me._ What the fuck did she know about this? Nothing, nothing at all.

One, surely she was allowed one. One kid. She could save him, couldn't she? Not all of them, but maybe this one.

_Go_, she mouthed, and slammed the door shut, sliding the bolt home.

--

_Quasilit Valley WA, 1997_

If this was Uncle G's idea of a sick fucking joke, Brent Proctor was having none of it. Because, really -- _Dino_? That little fucker was a cocky bastard, and it was only a matter of time before they all saw it, paintballs be damned.

And scratched the place on his forehead before he realized that Dino was looking at him with that little crooked grin. _Wipe it off his fucking face, that's what I'll do_.

Uncle G had made Brent and Dino partners for the rest of the week, informed them that they should work out their falls between them, back each other up, keep a lookout for the other. That Brent should quit with his asinine pranks; leaving the Kid out on a mountainside at night to walk back to camp was apparently a bad idea, mostly because Uncle G was the one who'd had to drive all the way back to get him. Maybe, Brent thought, maybe the boss thought putting them together would be a _bonding_ experience.

He'd like to bond Dino's ass to a barbed wire fence.

But no, now he had to make nice with the Kid, because Uncle G was watching, as was Lori, who made sure that Dino always had more food, and now had figured out back up meals so that no matter what manner of shit Brent cut the Kid's food with, he always had another meal. Like Dino would starve. Right.

This job wasn't a normal stint, no way, not with all the favoritism that was being shown. Not with the boss and the camp cook all cozy with the Kid.

And even aside from the Kid, Brent didn't know if he liked working the Quasilit Valley. Too many protestors this year, stupid little owls. Secretly, he hoped they didn't set up a road block. He didn't like running blockades; it felt a little like going through a picket line, he didn't like that either.

And just two days ago, while the Kid was still walking down the mountain from where Brent had left him, the planting boss had swung over, asked them about another AWOL planter, wondered if they'd seen her, given any little hairy-armpitted hippie chick a ride down the mountain. Shit. What was that this year alone? Four maybe? The crew boss had mentioned bear, or maybe wolf given the tracks they'd been finding, but Brent knew better. Nothing more than sore hands, sore back, reality unromantic as hell.

More little city assholes thinking that they had business being up in the bush. Not like him; he'd grown up here. Dad a logger. Uncles loggers. Had two half-brothers that logged up in Alaska. Christ, even his brother-in-law was a bush pilot.

No one had cut Brent any slack when he'd been coming up, so why should he? Would toughen the Kid up, or scare him back down to town where he could get a job as a busboy in some trendy restaurant. And too cocky when you were a faller was just _asking_ for it.

That was when the tree – not a big one, okay, but still a ton of wood falling forty feet, splintering with the yowl of cat getting stepped on – dropped two feet from him, making the ground bounce beneath his boots, wood shrapnel flying like something out a Hong Kong chop-socky movie. Misty rain all around them and the whoosh of tree and the spray of water from the branches of a small Doug fir falling, almost killing him.

Brent turned, and Dino choked his chainsaw – the big Stihl that Uncle G never let anyone borrow – and smiled hugely. "Wow," the Kid said, slipping his ear protectors onto his shoulders. "Close one." A beat and they stared at each other. "Sorry."

Brent was too stunned to say anything. The dumb-ass little motherfucker. Trying to kill him now, was he? Even though Brent knew Dino had a damn fine sense of how a tree fell, where to pitch one exactly, this was just…crossing a line.

Uneven ground, fern and slash and Dino grinning big. No way Brent was going to charge him and start a brawl, although that's what he felt like doing. He'd seen the Kid move on the paintball field; played tough and would probably take him in a fair fight. Brent had rarely wanted to clock someone as much as he wanted to beat the shit out of this little asshole. He didn't say anything, looked up, gauging the wind. "Over there," he said, "_Cocksucker_," under his breath.

Two could play this game.

Dino wanted to live on the edge? He'd show him the fucking edge. Took a Humboldt undercut to the Doug fir – a big one, don't fuck it up because it was worth some – looked up for widowmakers, the rain steady now, saw the dance of the limbs, felt the wind shift. Not good, looked round the incline, calculating gravity as best he could. A snag at the west side would bump it some, wind changed slightly, then died. Good. Brought out a wedge, looked round to see where Dino had gone to. Damn, he'd moved, way out of the way, was doing his own calculations.

Except he wasn't looking at Brent and his tree; he was looking at something in the screen of underbrush, was bending down a little, then suddenly brought his Stihl around, for all the world like he was going to start it up, although there was no tree big enough to cut right around him, only huckleberry and fern.

It was a long moment: Dino standing steady, looking at something Brent couldn't see, the Stihl in one hand, the other curled around the pull cord. And then Brent noticed something else about the Kid: he was talking, either to himself or something that was in the bush. Brent's chainsaw was too loud to hear whatever the Kid said, but Brent saw his lips move.

What the fuck could be more interesting that a huge tree coming down not a hundred feet away? Then Dino turned round and he wasn't grinning anymore. He looked…_young_, for a second. Scared.

Afraid of me and my big tree, are you Kid? You should be, asshole.

Brought out a rubber hammer, smacked in the wedge, looked up, rain in face, smacked the wedge, get the fuck out of the way, Kid. Shiver in the branches, smack, shiver, and the tree slowly tipped, groaned. Pulled the cord, the chainsaw jumped in his hands, another cut, plume of saw dust, smell of heat and wood and wet and rain and something else that made the hair in his nostrils curl.

_Not going to think of smells when I got a coupla tons of old growth about to come down._

Top branches twirled, twisted, and Brent wished he hadn't gotten so drunk last night because this was a shitty job to do hungover. Branches weren't twirling because that meant torque, dammit…goddamn it, no, they _were_, and Brent Proctor didn't have a fucking clue which way this tree was going to fall.

He killed his chainsaw, jumped away, cause this was just the sort of tree that would kick back, a subway train to the chest, and that was not how Brent wanted to leave this life. Backed up, ran, helmet falling, yelling to the Kid, _move it move it move it!_

And then the tree fell with the sound of humpback whale being dropped from a great height and everything went black.

Next he knew, he was face up, branches all around him, and his whole fucking leg was one big scream. The woods were silent, though, couldn't hear a damn thing. Except that weird noise, that whimper. _Oh, goddamn it, that's me. Fuck it, stupid noise. Man, this hurts._

"Proctor?" he heard then. Damn, the Kid. Brent tried to move, but the tree not only blocked his view of everything except branch and sky, a big barrel of a trunk within touching distance, ridged and furrowed, two hundred years old at least. The branches were on top of him, one big around as his waist laying right across his chest. Hurt to breath. Goddamn.

"That you, Dino?" Brent yelled, but that hurt too.

"Yeah. You okay?" Dino called back. He was close, on the other side of the tree.

"Trapped. Think my leg's busted. Can you get to me?"

Silence from the other side. Shit, was the Kid hurt? Finally, "Nope." Dino said it quietly, like he didn't want to wake anyone up.

And then Brent heard a growl. A huffing, grunting kind of growl.

"What the fuck is that?" Brent shouted. Man, that was a strange noise. Was the Kid trapped too? He had the radio, didn't he? Where was Brent's safety whistle? Shit, as if he could reach his belt anyway.

Dino didn't say anything, but Brent heard the growls some more, only word for them, really, through they sounded like garbled words, like a guy with his tongue cut out trying to have conversation. He couldn't see what was going on, but heard the crack of breaking branches. Something big was moving over there, on the other side of the downed tree.

"Can you reach your chainsaw?" Dino yelled. "Can you reach it?" he demanded a second time, before Brent had even opened his mouth.

What the fuck? "No, I fucking can't because I can't fucking see my chainsaw because I have a fucking tree on me. Is that…" oh no, shit, what kinda luck would it be to get hit by a tree and then -- "Is that a bear?"

Dino didn't get jammed up easy, as Brent has reason to know, but he sounded worried. "Um," Dino said more loudly, not answering. "Yeah, I'm pinned, too. Don't know where my chainsaw is, can't cut myself out." And something in Dino's voice triggered a deep fear in Brent. A shiver, primeval, original. Run, it said. _Run_.

_Can't run, trapped under a tree,_ Brent replied to this ancient voice. _Thanks for the warning, though._

"Kid, don't piss it off, okay?" Then remembered. "Treeplanters have been going missing, I heard. They think a bear might be involved. It probably…" Fucking maneater, maybe. It probably likes the taste of human, he thought, but didn't want to freak the Kid out further. Who the fuck was he kidding? Freak _himself_ out.

A pause and the sound of a big body crashing through the bushes became crystal clear. On Dino's side of the tree. Brent also heard the rumble of the Kid's voice – he had a distinctive deep tone, mature – talking, slow and soft, like Brent wished he sounded like when he was trying to get a girl to leave the bar with him. What the fuck was the Kid saying? He wasn't talking to Brent, that's for sure. To the bear. The Kid was talking to the _bear_. It was surreal.

Shock, that's what this was. Just pain and shock. Probably had smashed his leg all to shit, lost a bucketful of blood somewhere, maybe even knocked his head. Brent wiggled the fingers of one hand, trying to get to the whistle.

The Kid's voice kept going, lulling, at once calming and eerie. Smooth, man, so smooth. Brent couldn't make out the words, but the bear's rustlings halted, and Brent imagined the bear sitting there with a happy smile on its snout, listening.

Goddamn.

"Keep it up, Kid, I can almost reach my whistle. Just keep it up, keep talking to the bear, don't let it…" and he couldn't finish that because he'd been about to say, 'eat me', and that just made him sound like a complete pussy. Finally, the whistle came loose in his hand, released from his belt loop. His fingers were numb, but he managed to get the whistle to his lips and blew. Hard. More than once.

All the while, the Kid's soft rumble kept going up and down, and so gentle and sweet and musky Brent Proctor almost felt like he wanted to marry the Kid himself.

"No fucking way." Dean didn't even look at Uncle G, just shook his head, adrenaline not yet fading, buzzing like a mild electric current along his nerve endings. "No."

Dave had put an emergency blanket around Dean's shoulders, but he was still shivering. The rain fell without cessation, blown by the thupping blades of the oncoming helicopter, and he was cold, but that wasn't why he shivered. God, he couldn't even think about what he'd seen, about what he'd _done_, but if he didn't figure it out he would be dead.

It hadn't come as Ludovic this time, it had come as itself, shuffling deceptively through the undergrowth like it was ungainly, keeping screened until it had been close enough that Dean had seen the blue glowing eyes through the mist. Reminding him of something only seen in the back of a Cadillac, claws and teeth in him, making contact. Wanting him then and now, but playing at the same time, extending their time together as though it was precious.

Yes, Uncle G, I would love to be off this fucking mountain, yes I would.

But not with a Wolf in the woods, because he'd been raised with the father he had and you didn't walk away from something like this. _Call Dad, he'll know what to do._ Right. Say what, exactly? _Dad, could you please drag your ass out of bed and kill this thing that I'm afraid of? This thing that wants to fuck me or eat me or maybe both._ And Dad, high on painkillers, what would he do except get himself killed? Not even taking into account Ludovic himself, once John had found him. The Wolf could tell John Winchester what his son had done five years before, could bring up what Dean had never talked about, not once, not to anyone.

He shivered harder, so hard it hurt, so hard he wished he could stop, because he could barely say anything and if he didn't appear even a little _with it_, the paramedic and Uncle G would see right through him, force him into the fucking helicopter.

The paramedic finished strapping Brent into the basket stretcher, and Brent's head wobbled round to look for Dean. Found him. "You were fucking amazing, Kid." His beady eyes were glassy; the paramedic had given him a big shot of morphine. "You shoulda seen him, Dave, Uncle G. Had that bear eating outta his hand. Never heard anything like it." This was about the fourth time he'd said this to them, more maybe. The helicopter had taken a long time to come. Brent had a story to tell, and he was going to tell it. As many times as it took.

Dave shook his head, smiling at Dean, who looked away, stared at his boot-tips, tried to ignore the lightning twinge every time he moved his right arm. The paramedic had looked at it, looked at the cuts on his head, said he should come with them to the hospital in Aberdeen. Not if it meant riding in that thing, he'd told him. _I'm okay_, had played down how bad his arm felt, already swelling. Just a sprain, he'd told Uncle G, pleading.

"Hey Dino," Brent shouted, but his voice cracked. "I'm sorry about the piss. Really…" and drifted off. Dean smirked, and Dave laughed out loud.

"Man, I'd have let the bear eat that mean motherfucker," Dave said, passed Dean a cup of coffee from his thermos.

Dean took it in his left hand, the one that didn't hurt. He gulped it, glad of its relative warmth. Too milky and laced with rum. The alcohol hit his stomach like a hand grenade. "No you wouldn't have."

The helicopter's blades throbbed in the air overhead, and the concussive whup-whup hurt in a deep way, married up with the shivering, seemed to come from the same core, or resonated there. The paramedics ran Brent out into the too-small clearing, twigs becoming shrapnel in the dust-up. They clipped the metal rescue stretcher to the cable, winched up. A paramedic had said that they could put a loop round Dean, haul him up into the 'copter.

Dean, sitting on a stump, one side of his face running with blood and haphazardly patched up with a field bandage and adhesive tape, looked at the helicopter and knew he'd have to be unconscious before they ever got him into one of those things.

The drive down to camp was bumpy and the windshield wipers played a lullaby, and Dean stretched out in the back of Uncle G's truck, felt safe for once, and fell asleep or unconscious, wasn't aware of which it might be.

He woke to darkness and the sudden wrongness of a stopped vehicle. A familiar voice cried, "Oh my god, what did Brent do?" and Lori was shining a flashlight into the back of the cab. He felt like he'd been beaten, which in a way he had, because he'd had a fucking tree fall on him, hadn't he? The adrenaline was gone, replaced with leaden pain, everywhere.

"S'okay," he blurted out, tried to lever himself up, then sucked air between his teeth as he put pressure on his injured arm. The cab's interior lurched to one side, but that was just his vision and he was shivering again. Lori frowned, slid a hand under one shoulder, helped him out. She pulled his left arm around her small shoulders and she was warm and so strong and Dean was perfectly okay with all of this. He leaned on her more than he liked, but couldn't help it, not really.

"I have some soup on, that'll go down good, yeah?"

Uncle G lifted the mangled Stihl out the back and by the camp's lights, Dean could see the expression on his face: resigned. Then looked up at Dean, smiling. "You looked better up the mountain, hero. Let's see how you're feeling in the morning, okay? If you're not doing any better, one of the guys'll drive you down to get checked out at the local hospital."

Camp bravado: suck it back, princess. Fit perfectly with Dean's usual philosophy, which he'd studied at the John Winchester School of Pain Management.

"Sorry about the saw," Dean said, and he felt Lori sigh under him. Hey, that was an expensive piece of equipment, and it getting busted up while he was using it wasn't anything to shrug off.

But that's just what Uncle G did. "No worries. Engine's still good. A new bar and we're laughing. Get yourself some soup, then you and Dave can head for the motel." He took a few steps, and Dean had the feeling a mountain of paperwork awaited him. Then Uncle G turned, took the cigarette out from behind his ear, lit it. "Think she's got a bottle of something hard under the stove; get her to pull it out."

And that's the first thing Lori did, poured him a huge whiskey into a coffee mug, pushed it into his hands as he slumped at the table. They were the only ones there, the rest of the crew had already gone down to the decrepit loggers motel in the nearby shithole village. It must have been eight at night, dark now, and rain coming down heavily. Though the crew usually slept in the motel, Lori stayed up at camp in a small trailer, she and Uncle G minding the equipment; Lori had an early start to the day, cooking breakfast starting at four. This was her domain.

She looked at him closely, small eyes even smaller from worry. "What happened?"

Dean would have shrugged, but it hurt. The rye burned something awful, but he wanted the warmth right now. He gulped it steadily, wondered if alcohol was such a good idea, getting hit by a tree, probably a broken arm, maybe in shock. Fuck it, he didn't care. The shivering was still there, just dulled by sleep and the rye and the…oh, god. He'd _talked_ to it. He'd talked and talked to it and he felt the sudden overwhelming need to throw up.

Started shivering in earnest again, took a shaky breath, because without a chainsaw, trapped under that tree, he'd had nothing but his voice and talk and that motherfucker had _enjoyed_ it. Had stolen something else from him today.

Lori sat beside him, one hand on his shoulder, rubbing. Finally, he put the empty cup down. She refilled it. He looked at her. "Tree fell. Got trapped. Smoked Brent."

"The guys were talking about a bear." She looked at him and he didn't feel like lying. He was too tired and too sore and he remembered everything and goddamn it, he wished his dad was here right now.

He shook his head. "It wasn't a bear, it was Ludovic." And couldn't go on.

He didn't know how to do this; maybe his dad did, knew how to talk to ordinary people about extraordinary things. Maybe you were just supposed to blurt it out. Maybe you needed some kind of proof. But Dad had made a point of telling them always, _always_ to shut the fuck up about the supernatural, and even a cup of rye whiskey and a broken arm didn't mean he could break that rule.

So they looked at each other for a long moment before Lori turned to get him some beef barley soup and a spoon.

The wind picked up and swept through the tent, and Lori went to the open flap, determined to shut it, turning on the overhead heaters. The heating toggle switch snapped and then he heard the click-click-click as she adjusted it, then she stopped and Dean heard her say, "Too late tonight, Ludovic. Kitchen's closed."

Oh, fuck, he thought, trying to dig deep, trying to find something inside to use. Gutted. Just _done_, nothing left in the tank. Drinking on an empty stomach when it was still out there and wouldn't Dad be proud of him now.

Despite this, not knowing how, not knowing if he'd pass out if he tried it, Dean struggled to his feet, felt every bruise on him, his head pounding, leaned heavily against the table with his good hand, and turned.

Ludovic brushed past Lori, whose eyes were big as saucers, round face white. Walked right past her to Dean, glanced at his soup bowl and cup of grain alcohol, and sat down. "Just got back in from surveying the northwest quadrant; it's going to be a bitch to get in there. I earned my pay today." He looked up at Dean, still standing, holding his arm by the elbow, bandage on his face. "You look like shit, kid," he said conversationally, then cocked his head at Lori. "Seems like the kitchen's still serving."

Licked his lips.

And smiled back to Dean: _See what I can do? Behave yourself, boy_. Gestured to the seat across from him, then flicked a glance meaningfully at Lori.

Dean sat slowly, trying to buy time, not knowing what was coming next. So calm here, Ludovic, just like normal, just himself. The timber scout, in from one of his frequent independent forays into the woods, gone for days on end, just reappearing when he'd mapped whatever it was he was keeping track of. Normal.

Not what he could become, all sinew and tooth and claw. And those blue eyes and Dean thought about what Ludovic had taken from him, both today, in the woods, and in a Cadillac in Seattle. In a diner there.

It's afraid of saws, it can be killed. He looked around for a weapon, anything with an edge. Kitchen knife, maybe, but they were all put away and he didn't know where Lori kept them.

Lori glared at Ludovic, but got him some soup, slammed it down in front of him. She didn't hover, but she didn't go far, just to the griddle. This all felt more dangerous than being pinned under a tree with Ludovic prowling the bushes, glimpses of teeth and fur and raw desire. Because it wasn't just him and piece of shit Brent Proctor. It was her, and he wasn't going to run this time.

Nothing, nothing to use. Hot soup? That could be a deterrent, but not a weapon. He could barely stand without falling down, could barely move his arm now the swelling was bad, and the rye swirled in his stomach like acid. Every reason to know how fast this thing was. God, he wanted to kill it, but how?

"A treeplanter went missing this afternoon, while that stinking excuse for human skin was getting airlifted out." Ludovic's voice was low, didn't carry past the table, was all grinds and harsh things, a bag of broken glass.

The rye turned bilious in Dean's mouth. "What?"

Ludovic shrugged. "Just disappeared off the cut block." He leaned forward, every angle to him sharp and designed to hurt. "Not what I wanted, of course, not what's _needed_…"

"Shut up," Dean whispered, and his heart was going too fast and this was where the blood was, and he remembered from before what this thing was capable of, the claws and the teeth and what drove it.

Ludovic smile uncertainly like he barely remembered how to do it, the eyes glittering. He picked his teeth, shoved the soup away as unsuitable, or inedible, or most simply, not what he wanted. "They're slow, the girls. Don't taste right, don't sound right…" His hand came across the table and Dean leaned back, away, instinct kicking in at the same time as a new rush of adrenaline. "Talk to me again, just…"

Dean stood, no weapon – a fucking spoon in his left hand, for god's sake – and the whole tent blurred black. He couldn't pass out now, he thought, but then the endorphins were back, steadied him slightly.

Above the buzzing, he heard Lori's shaking voice. "Get out of here."

Without moving his body, or his head, he slid his gaze over to the serving area: Lori, with a shotgun. She cocked it, a pointed mechanical sound over the howl of the wind and the rain. "Go on." She was used to bears, and she was a woman who worked around men, and there wasn't much that she was afraid of. She was afraid now, Dean knew, but she didn't let that stop her from doing what needed to be done.

Ludovic's eyes didn't leave Dean's, and he reached out again, almost against his will, unable to stop himself, but Lori took a step towards him, lifting the gun to her shoulder. Gun that size would probably knock her right over, Dean thought.

"Don't you touch him, or I swear to god…"

The Wolf's eyes latched onto Lori, and Dean felt like throwing up again. _Oh, god_, he thought, remembering. _Don't do this Lori, he won't forgive it._

"Shoot it," Dean growled. Ludovic smiled at Dean, and Dean didn't care how ludicrous it sounded. "Lori, shoot the sonofabitch!" Because that's what this thing deserved and killing it was the only way to stop it; the gun wouldn't do it, but it would buy time, maybe to find a knife. "Give it to me, then!"

Her call, though, not his. She glanced at Dean and he could tell from her expression that she thought he was crazy. Then back to Ludovic, gestured with the gun to the tent flap. "Get the fuck out of here before I do what he wants."

And Lori let the Wolf leave the tent, the unwanted soup cooling on the table.

Once he was gone, she lowered the shotgun. Her face was gray. "C'mon." She wasn't letting go of the gun, and wasn't going to give it to Dean, because he was going to go shooting up the camp like an insane person. "C'mon."

He made a noise low in his throat, unable to warn or to thank or to cry and he wanted to do all three. "Where?"

"I'm getting you out of here," she said, throwing on her coat and grabbing her keys.

As soon as they were in the truck, she told him to lie down in the back, stretch out, get some rest. She made him take the bottle of rye, told him to finish it, because she was fairly sure his arm was broken, and the road down was really rough; better if he passed out in the back. Where are we going? he asked again.

She didn't say at first, but then, as the rye kicked in and the road became steeper, she radioed Uncle G: 'loaded pickup approaching bridge at 18.4', loaded in the sense of 'heading out'.

Heading out because she was going to Tacoma, hospital then home, and if she ever saw him up here again, she'd tell Uncle G that he was only eighteen and he'd get thrown out on his skinny ass.

But she was crying as she said it and Dean was past trying to understand any of it.

--

_Quasilit Valley WA, present day_

They drove slowly back to the planter's tent city, Ruby leaning against him, radioing their position even as Sam listened for Dean's coordinates, recognizing his brother's voice roughly calling out his progress up the opposite side of the valley through the static and the coded language. He reached his camp five minutes before they reached theirs.

As they pulled in, Ruby brought up the Granny, talked about what she was doing, of how their little efforts at re-planting were a drop in the bucket, that some of the clear-cuts were so big they could be seen from space. That Granny had the right idea, she said. _Maybe I'll join her._

Sam looked at her and shook his head, grinning. She'd do it, too. She was the sort. It was one of the things he liked about her, the conviction. The truck's interior was warm and they talked for a few minutes, reminding Sam that he was capable of having conversations that didn't involve supernatural lore, or gun talk, or classic rock. Their father, or demons, or wacky paranormal powers.

He could just sit and talk politics, and protest, and economic realities in the natural resource sector.

The planter's camp was in full party mode; the mess tent lit up with plastic lanterns, bins of chips and popcorn out, a bong, loud music, sounds of sex coming from various areas around the planter's tents. Sam saw it all with a Wolf's eye, and it looked like some cheap horror movie, complete with over-sexed coeds in the ominous wilderness. All they needed was some dude in a hockey mask and they'd be set.

Not the Wolf's MO, though, to pick the planters directly out of the camp, seemed to prefer them alone on the mountainside. Sam sighed and Ruby looked at him. "What's up?" she asked. "You don't want to go in?" And she sounded so hopeful.

It wasn't that he didn't like her – hell, it had been a long time, after all, and up here it was difficult to imagine the ritualized courting patterns of campus life. Just, _do you want to screw? Yeah? Excellent_. End of story. The planters hooked up, separated, went back to the cut block and tried to outplant each other the next day. Bragging rights were all about tag counts, not sexual partners.

So it wasn't that.

They got out of the truck and he put an arm around her shoulders, smiled, decided to go into the mess tent, where there was noise and movement and company. Maybe she'd find someone else for the night, which would be enough to keep her safe, Sam thought regretfully. Maybe it would be him, but he didn't think so. Still too sore and not right and flapping around like a stupid bird with a broken wing.

Not really okay, him, not when it came to women. Not yet. But better than he'd been, which must qualify as _healing_, in some therapist's books. Dean would have smiled – leered, actually – and pushed him to the tents, given him a condom and completely unwanted and unneeded advice, for god's sake.

Oh, thank god Dean wasn't here. Bongo drums and dope and guitars, singing and dancing. Hacky sack and Frisbees and granola. Dean would laugh himself sick.

Or not. Sam was thankful Dean was miles away for many reasons, not the least of which was coming back from the latrines, just loping along, distinctive sly movement, graceful and somehow alien. Graying blond hair tied back, same as before down at the protest camp, he had somehow gotten back up here at the same time, or before them. It was a new moon, werewolves would be dormant during this period. It made no sense.

Sam told Ruby he'd meet her inside, pushed her gently to the tent. He didn't want Lukas anywhere near her, didn't want her to spot him. Ruby _liked_ Lukas, thought he was handsome, for an old guy. Lukas was heading straight for them, and Sam felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand. He braced his feet apart, had a good half-foot on this guy, wasn't scared. Was furious, as a matter of fact.

"Evening," Lukas said, watching Ruby walk away into the tent. He looked like he'd just remembered a good joke, had a half-smile on his face. Sam couldn't quite tell, not from the far lights, exactly how far the joke went. Not far, he was betting. "Just back from the Granny tree?" Lukas started to edge around Sam, kept himself angled so he was facing Sam, exquisitely balanced, _poised_.

Sam uncrossed his arms, ready. "Thought I saw you there." No point in dissembling.

Lukas shrugged, arms bare to the night, muscles like Iggy Pop – old, twisted like the muscles on a burned body, on a mummified animal. Eyes catching light, almost reflective. Not quite human in the half-light, but maybe that was Sam's imagination. "I like the action sometimes. Gets lonely up in the mountains."

Sam glanced into the dark skies – no stars, overcast. "New moon," he murmured, trying to get a reaction.

Lukas smiled deeply, creases forming around his mouth and eyes. "Clean slate." He followed Sam's gaze up to the sky. "We'll have fog tomorrow. Cold." He paused, and for the first time Sam saw that the hesitation wasn't deliberate. The hard fingers played with his belt buckle. "That was your brother, down there."

Said in a voice flat as Kansas. Statement, not question: I know that's your brother. An undercurrent of…ownership, maybe? _Has his claws in and isn't going to let go, whether he's my brother or not._

A prickling sensation rippled Sam's spine, pure fear. On its heels, though, more anger. "Stay away from him," Sam whispered. He had no threat, no 'either-or', because he was planning to kill this thing, and he wasn't about to lie to Lukas and tell him he wasn't. And Lukas, he could see, had no intention of staying away from anybody. It was all useless posturing.

Don't get in his face, Dean had said, had meant it. They'd seen and fought and killed plenty of strange shit, scary motherfuckers that ran howling in the night. What was it about this one? Dean didn't spook easy, didn't duck for cover when things went wrong. Dean didn't get truly angry about much, either, would flare up and burn quick, couldn't hold a grudge to save his life.

And this Wolf had been plaguing him for years.

Lukas's bright gaze rested on the tent flap for a moment, eyes darting with the movement of people, dancing, leaving the mess tent for the privacy of the sleeping tents. So much life and warmth, catalogued, observed, calculated and measured.

"You knew him from before," Sam tried. "Ten years ago, this valley."

Lukas smiled, as if his attention was on the tent, not on Sam. His voice sounded dreamy, half asleep. Far away. _Remembering_. "Is that what he told you?" Long slow smile, lingering, and Sam suddenly didn't want to know, knew that it would hurt, maybe more than he could bear. Lukas didn't continue, though Sam saw the planter's breath quicken, the sudden rise and fall of his chest.

The eyes were back on Sam, edged with hatred and cold murder. The words he spoke easily could have been Sam's. They were the same words Sam was thinking, anyway. "You stay away from me. And from him." He took three experimental steps away, just out of Sam's reach, in case he tried anything.

_The machete_, Sam thought uselessly, _is in my tent_.

Lukas waved goodnight and continued into the mess tent, full of thirty people or more, leaving Sam standing in the dark, woods moving uneasily around him, wind shifted and moonless. Ruby was in there, but Sam had more pressing business now.

His tent was just as he left it, bedroll neatly set out, bags ready for the next morning's drive up to the cut block, machete under his pillow. He made sure it was still there, then took out the phone. It was a tricky thing, finding the connection, but luck and a well-situated satellite were in his favor.

Dean answered on the first ring. "Sam."

"It's marked you," Sam replied, not softening it. "It saw us together, knows that we're brothers."

A delay. The phone? Or Dean?

"Imagine my surprise." Dry. Accepting, and Sam couldn't be, not with this.

"Dean, this isn't the time to be a fucking superhero." Tried to think of what he could do, of what was actually possible. "I'm coming up there."

Pause, a definite delay. "--you're not. You've got a camp full of nubile young tree hippies to protect. That Ruby, for one. Seems kinda sweet on you…"

"No, you don't get to do this, Dean." Sharp, words cut with precision. Fuck it, he was mad now. "Lukas said that a new moon was a clean slate. What does that mean?"

Another annoying pause and Sam didn't know if Dean was deliberately being evasive, or if it was just the phone. "I have no idea."

"Really?" Still angry. "Clean slate, can start over – start over what? Killing people? Hunting you? What?"

The pause made Sam feel like he was arguing with a brick wall. Maybe he was.

"--said I don't know, Sam!"

"You don't get to lie to me and …"

"When did I lie to you?" and now Dean was getting angry; Sam could hear it, despite the thin crackle of static.

"When was the first time you ran into this thing? Really? 'Cause it wasn't '97, Dean."

The pause actually told Sam a great deal, was more than the unstable connection. Dean could hold silence like a shield, and Sam _got it._ Because this was the only thing Dean could do, sometimes, when he couldn't speak, couldn't tell. Couldn't name something hurtful, or shameful, or so bad, so lacerating, it would kill him to say it.

Dean's throat would close up, and he just quieted, ran deep like a WWII submarine, listening for the depth charges, hoping that he didn't get hit. Like he could will himself invisible if he just held still.

"Dean," Sam breathed. "Dean?"

He heard Dean clear his throat, signaling his intentions. "Trouble is, if he doesn't come for me, he'll keep picking off the planters. So I gotta let him come close enough. I can't scare him off, Sam, and neither can you. He's got to come inside my reach."

"You have to let me help, Dean." Sam hated that it sounded like he was pleading. But he was; that's what it was. "If he's inside your reach, he's close enough to rip you to shreds."

"Not if…"

"Not if you take off his head with a chainsaw," Sam answered back. "I know."

"Axe might do it."

"Machete?"

A laugh. "Only in self defense, Sam." And now Dean was going to extract his own promise. Sam didn't know if Dean ever saw the irony in conversations like these. "Promise me you won't go after him on your own, Sam."

Why bother fighting? It's not as though either of them believed the other. "I won't." And Sam could almost see the grimace Dean must have given.

"I mean it."

"So do I, Dean."

Static pouring through a bad connection. Sam didn't know if he was missing words, but he was missing something and he wanted to get in the truck and drive up there right now. Just across the valley, not so far as the crow flies, but a good forty minutes drive. "I'll call tomorrow," Dean said, clearly, the vocal equivalent of his _don't fuck with me_ face, except under it, as always, worry. King of fucking false bravado.

"Not if I call first," Sam said shortly, and hung up. Code, they were speaking in goddamn code. Did an honest word ever pass between them? Only if you squinted, he supposed. He looked up, mouth twisting with frustration. Then his eyes locked with Ruby's, bent down in the flap, half smile on him, eyebrows lifting in question.

"Doorbell's busted," she said, not making it a question, even with the brows. "Was that your brother?"

Sam nodded, unable to speak for a moment.

"You sounded mad," and she came in. The tent was a good two-man pup, but not big; you had to crouch, and so she crawled in on hands and knees and despite his worry, something big and heavy lurched to the side of Sam's ribcage, a bad dancer out of practice. Might have been his heart. _Protect the hippie chicks_. Goddamn Dean for being right.

"I _am_ mad," he replied, making room for her.

"Mind if I stay?" she asked, open. Easy, in the best sense of the word.

The alternative to staying being…? Alone in her tent, or worse, with Lukas, and Sam didn't think he could send her out into the darkness.

"You should stay," he said, moving the machete from under the pillow. Her eyes followed that, registered the weapon. Not scared, knowing that there were bears around. He had a large double-sized mat and down-filled bag, because he was a big guy. Dean had groused about the extra expense, maybe not calculating that Sam would be _entertaining_.

Was that what he was doing? She settled beside him. "You know, I think I'm going to go to the protest camp tomorrow. I've had enough of working for the enemy. Astrid said if I wanted to have some effect, then I could."

He smiled at how her eyes shone. It hurt, he realized, feeling this, noticing things like shining eyes. He'd been avoiding this for a long time, it seemed. A family trait, apparently, avoiding things that hurt too much. "You're going up a tree?" he asked instead.

She slipped an arm through his, eyes still shining in the glow of the electric lantern, maybe for a different reason. "How about a back rub? I give a really good rub down, took some shiatsu at the health co-op," cajoling and he wanted to say yes, so paused.

After a moment, he shook his head slowly. He owed her an explanation, though. "I lost someone…a while ago," he began.

That was as far as he got, though, because Ruby stripped right down and unzipped his sleeping bag so it could cover them both. Took his lantern, switched it off and by the time Sam's eyes adjusted to the gloom, she had pulled him unresisting to the pad.

He took both her curious hands away from him, but stretched out next to her, pulled her close, because he wanted someone close to him tonight. She stopped moving then, just buried her face into his shoulder and he kissed the top of her head. They fell asleep like that, the both of them, not waking until Pablo banged his wooden spoon against a blackened pan, signaling breakfast.

--

_Seattle WA, 1992_

Three gunshots in quick succession and that stopped him cold. He turned back. Came quietly to the door, rested his open hand against it, the knife still in the other. It was a thick door, but he had good ears and what happened next was loud.

She only screamed once, and he staggered back from the door like it was electrified. The scream was cut off by the sound of snarls, the thick wet noise of a raw chicken carcass being ripped apart. At that horrific inconceivable sound, all the strength went from Dean's legs and he sank to his knees in the wet alleyway, then put out his hands, lowered his head into his cradling arms, tried to breathe.

It's going to move fast; it would come out the front and trap him here if he didn't leave. This is what he told himself, some reasonable voice that had nothing to do with begging or complaining or screaming in terror.

He rocked to his heels, listening, rooted to the ground. Far away, he heard police sirens, coming closer.

An edged weapon. That's what'll stop something like this. Not a bullet, not even if it was silver, because the moon cycle was wrong for a werewolf. He heard a thudding against the door, maybe the large body of the Wolf throwing itself against it, or something worse, and he couldn't think about that. She didn't have a chance, even if she'd been holding the gun right, which she hadn't been. He wiped blood or rain out of his eyes, breath coming too fast. _Slow it down, Winchester, or you're going to pass out. _

She had pushed him out the door and he had let her.

He had gone with that thing to his car. Had taken partial payment. Been _willing_. And now he couldn't move and the rain came down and it was late March in the Pacific Northwest and wet as an ocean and he was so incredibly cold. Shit, he'd be a sight, and if the cops got a look at him, they'd be all over him and Sam was sick at the garage, clutching a gun he knew how to use, but not knowing what was going on.

It wasn't as though either thing didn't matter – they mattered more than anything, really – but Dean was here now, and she had pushed him out the door and he had let her, even though bullets wouldn't kill the Wolf and she hadn't been holding the gun right anyway.

So he put the knife in his pocket and edged around the alley's corner so he got a clear view of the restaurant's broken front window, and that was when the first cop car showed up. Dean backed away three steps, then four, then turned and started to run. Once started, he didn't stop, not for a long time.

--

TBC


	7. Little Black Raincloud

**Chapter 7/**Little Black Raincloud

**What is it?** Gen, PG-13, mature and disquieting content, bucketfuls of swearing, blood, chainsaw accidents, character mutilation, a creepy sexual predator, and obligatory angst (these are the Winchesters we're talking about). WIP, will be 10 chapters.

**Disavowals:** Eh, who can say they really own anything these days? But as far as it goes, the words are mine, the canon characters I borrow. The rest I make up.

**Story Thus Far:**

A predatory Wolf has Dean in its sights: in 1992, John Winchester fails to return from a hunt, forcing Dean to a difficult decision about how to make ends meet. Dean narrowly escapes the horrific attention of an obsessed monster, though his supportive waitress friend does not. Five years later, the family is again in difficult financial circumstances and Dean takes a job in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, where he comes face-to-face with the same Wolf. Injured in a logging accident, Dean is taken home by the camp cook, Lori. A decade later, Dean realizes that his nemesis is again hunting the woods of the Olympic Peninsula. He and an unsuspecting Sam immerse themselves in the world of loggers, treeplanters, and environmental protestors; Dean is using himself as bait, and Sam is gently protecting Ruby, a fellow treeplanter. An elderly protestor chains herself to a tree; when Sam and Dean investigate, Dean is spotted by Lukas, the present-day incarnation of the Wolf. Dean is resolved in his intention to become bait; Sam is infuriated by his brother's refusal to tell him the whole truth of his past encounters with the Wolf.

--

_Tacoma WA, 1997_

_Damn, it's sunny._

Squinted, headache damn near unbearable, sun actually warm. Hot, even. Then Dean registered that the sheets smelled peculiar, not of pinesap and exhaust and sweat, but of…_goddamn_…feral pubescent boy. He raised his head a little, wrinkling his nose, but it hurt, so he put his head back down onto the pillow.

Something was going on outside the door. He almost felt it before he heard it; it made his shoulders hunch up with something very similar to fear or anxiety. Sam's voice, hissing, trying to keep it down.

His father's rumble, louder, not trying to keep it down.

"_Dad_," the hiss came again, a warning and a plea.

A-rumble-rumble. Funny, how Sam's hiss was more intelligible than Dad's angry mutters.

"No," Sam said, voice rising. Getting mad. _Oh man, here we go._ "No, you're not." And a soft thud on the door: Sam leaning against it. Blocking it.

More rumble-rumble.

"I _didn't_. You needed those meds. Doctor said." A pause, and Dean could almost feel Sam's weight against the door. "I wouldn't have knocked you out on purpose, it was a _prescription_, Dad." Like John Winchester didn't know what that word meant.

_Oh, that attitude would get him far._

"Step away, Sam." That good and clear. "He's slept long enough."

Scraping noise, Sam moving or being moved, Dean didn't know. He tried to get up, but his right arm was in a cast and it caught his attention, mostly because it had flowers drawn all over it in colored marker_. What the hell?_ Flowers, hearts – a unicorn, for fuck's sake – and in curlicues, in Sam's careful lettering_, I luv u_ and _Metallica sucks_, and a big question mark with the word: _Score!_ Followed by an arrow running from his thumb to the outside of his forearm, where a different hand, in ballpoint pen, had written: _call me – Lori_, and a number.

His head felt like heated wires held it together – badly – and his mouth tasted of wet newspaper and bile. From the tight hard knot on his temple, he had a few stitches sewing him a new scar. Daylight, Tacoma, apartment 3B. City, no Wolf.

A Tacoma hospital, slumping in the chairs, Lori's small hard hand rubbing a groove in his back like an old record, puking in a hospital bucket. Drugs. Setting the arm. Didn't remember much else. Didn't remember getting home, saying hello or goodbye.

Second try, sat up in the bed, still in jeans and a t-shirt; someone had taken off his boots. _Sam_. The doorknob rattled and something harder than cloth or ass hit the door, elbow maybe. It was going to get physical; he should stop it.

Sam's voice, aggrieved. "Dad, please. He's sleeping. C'mon."

"Son," and now John was not muttering. "He's been sleeping for eighteen hours. I should know, I was here when he came in, not you. Stinking of booze, held up by a little blonde, probably been in a barfight for all we know. Took off when I was down for the count, leaving us notes while he played _paintball_, Sam. You can't just feed me drugs until I calm down."

A superhuman effort spurred by _that tone_ in his dad's voice, and Dean was on his feet, straightening. The door opened a crack and the first thing he saw was Sam, crooked grin, skinnier than a greyhound on methamphetamines. Sam's eyes darted to the cast, proud of his handiwork. Happy to be blocking dad, even if it was only for a second or two.

Their eyes locked and Dean swallowed, mouthed the word, _thanks_, meant to say it out loud, but his mouth was suddenly too dry because goddamn it, John Winchester was pushing Sam out of the way, balanced on crutches like they were a new and untested kind of weapon, and he wasn't _pleased_.

"Dad," trying for something that felt like normal, but it just wasn't coming. "How's the…"

But he didn't get a chance to ask, because his father had moved past his own injuries, had maybe forgotten them, except as an inconvenience. John stood tall, glaring at his son, and they were of a height, but Dean was leaner, hadn't grown into the good bones John had given him.

_I was working, Dad. I quit school. I was trying to help…Jesus, Dad, there's something bad on that mountain and it scares the shit out of me. I need to go back up there and –_

"Dean, Sam, pack your things." The weight of those dark eyes said it all: we're pulling up stakes and it's because of you, Dean.

"But, Dad!" Sam came into the room, all elbows and scruffy hair and voice that jiggled worse than Daytona at Spring Break. "Dad, I've still got a week to go, and exams and…"

"You heard me," John warned, very low, but not looking at Sam, because Sam didn't matter, wasn't part of this. It was between the two of them. Sam sighed like a soap diva, in the way only an ill-done-by thirteen year old can. He was probably rolling his eyes too, but Dean wasn't going to chance a look, because he needed to keep an eye on John.

John wasn't in the habit of giving reasons, but that didn't mean his eldest didn't understand them: the risk of exposure, this long in one place, two Winchester visits to the hospital in one month. Social services had been called before for less. And maybe_, I wear the pants, this is my house_. Excepting, of course, that they had no house anymore, no home, and absence – _loss_ – blew through Dean like a passing bullet.

"You'll have to drive," John continued, didn't make it a request, or an order, even. Just a statement of fact, obvious as _Sam'll be tall_ or _ectoplasm is bad_. Leg still in a cast, John looked worse than Dean, possibly felt worse, but Dean would never know it, not in a million years. "Unless a paintball's scrambled your wits."

One word now and Dean could make John go nuclear. Sam would do it; Sam was never afraid, never looked past the immediate fight.

Instead, Dean nodded, didn't say anything, mostly because there wasn't anything _to_ say. Except for what he wasn't _going_ to say. So he nodded again, no argument, would shoulder whatever guilt or responsibility John had on offer.

And that was that.

Sam did most of the heavy lifting; he had to. Though Dean thought several times that he might pass out from the headache, they were experienced at this, knew how to pack up their meager things in hardly any time at all, their dad going through a rote checklist of phone calls so that no one got concerned: school, outpatient services, one to Pastor Jim, another to some other location that had to do with a hunt, Dean suspected.

As angry as he was with the cut and run, Sam kept an eye on Dean, wordlessly passing him a nearly-empty bottle of their dad's painkillers when he found Dean leaning against the Impala's top with his forehead pressed against his broken arm.

John kept his own silence and his two sons moved through it like a bad winter until they were on the I-5, heading south, Dean driving in the watery sunlight, John stretched out on the backseat commanding silence like an invading general directed his troops. Slumped disconsolately in the passenger side, window cracked open a little, drawing patterns on the glass that no one else could see, Sam was tending his own grievance as though it would grow flowers if he treated it right. A little black raincloud hovered over his head, ready to water the wrong until it blossomed in its own season.

From time to time, Dean glanced across, hoping to catch Sam's eye, hoping that he'd understand _I'm sorry_. But Sam didn't look up, not once.

--

_Quasilit Valley WA, present day_

Ruby smiled all slow at him, waking up to the banging of Pablo's pans and Sam's ropy warm arms. Dark eyes and her red hair loose across his chest. Nice, he decided. He couldn't really take 'nice' as a concept much further, because she sat up and he'd sortof forgotten that she'd not been wearing much – hell, _anything_ – when they'd fallen asleep and this was more than nice, was something else altogether and he didn't mind for a minute that she caught him looking.

This. This he might be able to do, one day. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon, sooner than he'd have expected or wished for. He had never imagined anything more than Jess, anything after Jess, and now maybe he could.

The voice in his head was always Dean's_. Ooh, well that was great, way to dampen the mood, Sammy._

He slid out from under the spread sleeping bag, the tent stuffy with their sleep breathing, pulled on a hoodie, tried not to watch her dress, but did anyway and she knew it.

At least he wouldn't have to worry about Ruby on the cut block today. They emerged from the tent together, and she immediately declared that she was going to chain herself to a tree. Some of the other planters – Tommy, especially – mocked her for giving up on decent wages, but most of the others wished her well. She made Sam promise to come down when he was finished for the day, to come see her.

Sam wondered what kind of protection she'd get at the protest camp. He was planning on talking to Astrid, but didn't know how he was going to stress protective measures without provoking a lecture on the patriarchal hegemonic practice endemic to all capitalist post-colonial social constructs. Oh, yeah, this was going to go just fine.

She didn't even wait for breakfast, just kissed him hard and fast and caught the company super as he was heading out, begged a ride down. Sam was left standing, dazed, the only word for it, watching the truck's taillights disappear in the morning mist. He huddled down further into his hoodie, thought about what gear he'd need to bring out with him this morning.

Only one thing he truly needed, though: the machete.

Breakfast, and Lukas kept his distance across the tent, appearing once everyone was settled down, sitting with the other highballers, joking with them about who was having the better week, what the tag counts were, how many times they'd had to bag up in a shift. Sam talked to the crew chief and managed to get himself on Lukas's crew for the day, so they'd be working the same section.

He tried to get in the same truck as Lukas, the one driving them up to the block, but Tommy leaned out the canvas-covered back, said they were full. Sam swung into the next available truck, fretting. It was a hairy half hour drive, and the rain had started already, fine and inseparable from the mist.

Cold now, and being wet would make it colder, but as Sam geared up, wrapped the fingers of his left hand with duct tape and pulled on bike courier gloves – a gift from Ruby – he knew he'd be warm enough if he went fast enough. It wasn't about the trees, though. Screw the trees. With Ruby off the block, and Lukas warning Sam away from him – from _Dean_, for fuck's sake – Sam focused. He had a job to do and needed to get to it first, before Dean had a chance to.

He jumped out the back before the truck had even come to a full stop, shouldered some others out of the way at the cache, grabbing the bundles of seedlings – fir, spruce, pine today – and bagged up. It was instinct now, every movement deliberate, fast, mind already on the next thing, the innate pride of being efficient beyond all reason.

There – Lukas, already bagged up, no raingear, just the Stanfields and the cut-off jeans, not even calk boots, because he'd move faster without them, though he'd risk slipping on rain-slicked moss, would be more prone to injury from screefing. Only the very professional went without, and Lukas was one of the elite. Fingerless leather gloves, duct tape, a favorite worn planting shovel. A heavy load of trees, roughly double what Sam had carried out his first day on the cut block.

And he was off. Sam followed, the day intermittently bright in the way it could be when the air held more water than oxygen, light refracting like crazy when the sun broke free. Weirdly hot when the sun actually shone. Flies a torment.

Like the other planters, Sam had left his daypack at the cache, but his planting bags were deep enough to conceal the machete between the baby spruce and fir. So, _armed_, and with a very good chance to get Lukas alone, if only he could keep up with him to the back end, where the three-year old clear cut met second growth, maybe thirty years old. Far enough away from anyone else that whatever needed to happen could happen.

There was no way Sam could go fast enough.

All morning, losing sight of Lukas in the fog and out to the back end, doubling back, bagging up again – where the hell was he? Sam bagged a full load, calculated by linear foot how many he'd need to the back end and the return. Two trips, almost lunch; he was starving.

Lunch. And there was Lukas, grinning at Sam across the cache, both drenched in sweat and rain, Sam's muscles singing with effort and stress. Tommy and Teresa and Lorenzo comparing tag counts, chain-smoking, antsy to get back out into the slash so they could do it all over again.

Sam followed Lukas down the barely-there trail to their section, determined not to lose him this time.

He'd planted beside Tommy and Theresa, and been humbled by their speed. But this? This was insane. Lukas didn't stop for anything, was in constant motion, head bobbing like a robin listening for worms as he screefed with both foot and shovel, digging at the same time, hand a mere blur as he plugged the tree. Fast and even and just so damn precise – no slutting the density with an overfill, no seedling lamely hanging out, dying in the sun and the rain. _Technique_, that's what it was all about and Lukas had his down pat.

Even so, Sam sensed that Lukas wasn't going as fast as he could. Sam worked his way down his line, watching Lukas even as the sun departed behind a cloudbank and the air cooled. He couldn't see the valley floor; it was enveloped in thick fog, and it was rising, he could actually see it moving.

Glancing back from the giddy angle, he froze, surprised. Lukas had stopped, maybe fifty feet away, hard to tell now where the back end was, because the clouds had wisped into the trees like heavy snow, were obliterating Sam's sense of elevation and distance.

Lukas waited for Sam to come near. Steady, leaning on his shovel, one hand on his belt. As Sam walked carefully through the jagged angled slash, he dropped his right hand into his bag, felt for the handle of the machete.

Found it.

The eyes were cold and glittering as a glacier-fed stream, but things like that didn't deter Sam, not when the threat was so real and so powerful. He slowed his pace as he came nearer to Lukas, stopped when he knew his reach and the machete combined could take Lukas's head off. He wondered how hard he'd have to strike, had never decapitated anyone before.

Coldly wondered why he wasn't bothered by needing to do these sorts of calculations.

"Well, here I am," Lukas said. "You've been going fast for a newbie. Gotta goal?"

_Yeah, I got a goal._

Lukas's eyes glanced down at Sam's right hand, and he looked up smiling razors, grimaced in a way perhaps meant to be comical. "A goal-oriented boy. Gotta like that in a young person."

"Why him?" Sam asked, hadn't meant to. But he hated secrets, hated that Dean had his neat trick of appearing open while constantly holding back, didn't let Sam in, provided no jimmie for his many locks.

Lukas shook his head. "I don't owe you an explanation." Then got a look on him that Sam understood, had time to brace himself for. The look that said, _I'm trying to figure out what I can say that will hurt you most._ "Just got under my skin. A beautiful boy. The smell of him." A pause and Sam watched as Lukas dragged his tongue across his lips, pale. "How he sounds. How he --"

"Shut up," Sam choked. He'd asked. He had. He slowly drew the machete out, wondered if he'd asked because he'd known the answer already and needed to be this angry to hit hard enough.

The blue eyes were the same, but other things were changing. Lukas took a step back, but it was wrong, the way his knee moved was wrong – it hyper-extended, literally, and Sam halted, machete in hand. Lukas cocked his head to one side, and Sam saw that his neck was longer than it had been seconds before. Realized that he was about three steps too far from where he needed to be.

"You can put that away. I'm not coming for you." Lukas said, but it sounded as though his tongue was too big for his mouth, or that it'd been clipped like they did to mynah birds to make them talk. "That little redhead though. She likes me just fine. Couldn't do much with her, though, could you?" At Sam's expression, Lukas laughed, dirty and foul, slurry from a pig farm. "Yeah, I was listening, looked in on you. Cute."

Sam raised the machete, was not quite ready to go, was surprised more than angry at the moment, and that wasn't good. "You sick sonofa-"

Lukas was taller now, and stepped quickly to one side, a disconcerting, sickening motion not human at all. The laugh, cut-tongue garbled. "I'll take them both if you're not quick."

And then _moved_.

Low to the ground, Lukas knocked Sam from his feet. Sam's grip was so tight on the machete – _I can't drop it, I can't let go_ – that he came down hard as a cut tree, only breaking his fall with his hip, which rang like a struck bell.

Rush of body weight on him, fleeting, too swift to get a grip, a smell, even a _look_, and it was gone. Sam sprang to his feet, knew he was fast, knew he would not be fast enough. He stood in the foggy cut block, rain coming down harder now, seedlings spilled everywhere.

Alone.

Lukas's bag and shovel were still on the ground. Sam turned in a slow circle, holding the machete up, ready, knowing in his heart he didn't have to be, that there was no reason to be ready. Lukas was gone.

The fog sucked in sound, the wet air thickened and it _poured_. Sam stood, light raingear no match for this. The sound of it was incredible, first the smack of drops against the slash, building to a roar of percussion, so quick it became a wash of sound, then the gurgle of water running down the mountain, merging within a few minutes to the rush of a waterfall.

Sam stood until a figure in yellow appeared, waved him over. Rain hard enough to pull them from the block, no more use planting this afternoon, might as well call it a day. The crew chief wondered only half-heartedly where Lukas was, because it was just like Lukas to drop off his tags at the cache and take off into the mountains. They might not see him again for days; lucky that asshole was so good, otherwise he'd be fired.

Sam remained silent, ignored the offer of hot coffee from a thermos, unbound his fingers in the back of the truck while Tommy and the others moaned about the shortened day, brightening somewhat as they hit camp, the prospect of beer and a joint enough to elevate the mood.

Again, Sam was the first one out, practically ran to his tent, slid in like it was home plate, reaching for the phone. He played with it, fiddling with the signal, but heard only static. Five minutes of this, then ten, and he threw the phone down on the padding. He ran his fingers through his wet hair. The rain was now a hush of white noise over the tarps, soothing.

Sam wasn't soothed, not at all. His heart hammered big and he wondered if the crew chief would lend him a truck or if he'd have to steal one. He stopped long enough to change his boots and socks, throw on a set of clothes that wasn't soaking wet, then found the chief, got a set of keys. Was chatty, how he got when he was worried, explaining that he was going to check on Ruby, make sure she was okay, then continue on to see his brother, might not be back for a while.

The crew chief told him to grab some food, both for himself and for Ruby, say hi to her from them. _If she changes her mind…_let it go with a shrug that Sam didn't pay any attention to.

He kept the machete on the seat beside him.

--

_Ten miles north of the Washington-Oregon border, 1997_

Dean reckoned they'd stop eventually, and he was right: at the appearance of a roadside diner so tired it couldn't even spell 'home-made' right on its sign, John grunted something about a cup of coffee and Dean took that as instruction to pull over.

Sam jumped out first, didn't wait for the Impala to roll to a complete stop, seemed entirely too pleased to put distance between them, even if it was for the two minutes it would take for John to extricate himself from the backseat. Dean was watchful, stayed near enough to lend his dad a hand – not that it would be asked for, of course, just expected – and to pass him his crutches once he was out. He made some lame excuse about wanting to check the oil, and watched his dad thump purposefully into the diner, strong hands gripping the crutches, leg swinging like it was going to kick something into submission. John Winchester made being a cripple look like winning a prizefight.

Probably not a good idea to leave Sam and their father alone for any length of time.

Thought about that with a stupid thudding heart, because isn't that exactly what he'd just done? Isn't that exactly why his dad had said maybe three words to him in the last day, two of them being 'coffee'?

They sat at a table, general, rookie and grunt, Sam staring out the window the exact same way he had in the car, John scanning the menu like it revealed the enemy's battle plans. Wave after wave of anger came from both of them, so strong Dean was surprised they were all just sitting. A normal family. If you didn't count the broken bones and bruises.

He sighed and John looked quickly at him. Dean wouldn't meet his eyes, swallowed hesitantly. The smell of bleach and the clatter of cutlery thrown into the plastic trays, the way the waitress called 'order in' and ripped the paper from the pad, all of it was too much. A diner, one of a million they'd eaten at over the years, and he was suddenly thinking of broken glass, and the smell of grease when you were so hungry you thought you'd pass out, and the thud of a body against a closed door.

Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore, stood without a word, got the hell out of there.

The pay phone was down a corridor in the back, near the toilets. Dean was courting disaster if Dad found him here, receiver in hand, trying to turn his arm to an angle that didn't hurt so he could read the number. Strange area code, maybe a cell. He ducked his head into the corridor, a doorway into the restaurant with a view assuring him that John and Sam were seated, were still _there_. Weren't openly brawling in the aisles.

"Hey," the voice unknown.

Dean cleared his throat, kept it quiet. "Lori?"

A moment, clatter of noise, didn't quite know what he was hearing, then identified it as 'kitchen' and a voice, this one familiar and relief flooded through him, glass of water on a hot day great. "Yeah?"

Dean was so overwhelmed for a moment that he couldn't say anything, just leaned against the wall, out-of-date posters for rodeos and fishing derbies papering the hallway, and closed his eyes.

"Hello?" she repeated. "Hello?"

"Hi," he said finally. Nothing more.

"Dean?" she said, and he felt foolish suddenly. Not for long, though. She had that way of not letting you stay there for long, not unless you deserved it. "I am so glad to hear your voice. Where are you?"

He told her and then he heard the pleased assurance in her voice. _Stay away. Go with your family, drive the fuck away from here and don't come back._ She had pushed him out the door and he had let her. She talked on, soothing his silence with words.

"Well, Uncle G is fit to be tied. The protestors have managed to get a court injunction for the Valley. Stopped all logging for a week at least. He found Ludovic and fired his ass, shoulda known about the birds, I guess. Maybe."

Maybe. Not much got past Uncle G, especially if Lori had warned him about Ludovic. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "Where are you?"

"With Bob, here at his resort. Man, they need someone to run the kitchen. But if they open up the camp again, I've signed on with Uncle G for the season. We'll see how it goes."

He swallowed, looked through the doorway, across the counter to the restaurant, where he could see the back of his dad's head, Sam across the table from him, leaning into his hands now, studying the tabletop, brows knitted together. Both so angry.

"I should go." And abruptly hung up, not knowing how to say what he wanted to.

--

_Quasilit Valley WA, present day_

She was dead before he had the cast off, Dean thought, and pushed away the plate of eggs and beans, stomach churning.

The mess tent was virtually the same: white canvas, beat up mismatched fridges and tables that wobbled on the plywood foundation. He wrapped both hands around his coffee mug, hoping for warmth. He hadn't slept well the night before and felt shaky, like he needed both sleep and coffee; the caffeine and the weariness would just have to fight it out. He hoped the caffeine would win.

He hadn't even _seen_ Ludovic or Lukas or whatever the fuck he was calling himself nowadays, and this is what he got. _Sam. Good lord, Sam. Better stay the fuck away from the guy. _ That shouldn't be a problem: Dean had given the fucker a good look last night, made sure he kept in clear sight. He'd come. His gut twisted around what he'd eaten and he grimaced.

Across the table, Brent grinned wide, teeth broken in a lacrosse game last year, he said, and never fixed. "Hey, the beans are great! What are you bitchin' about?"

Beside him, Goodenuff Dave pulled Dean's plate to him, started cleaning it up. Around the mouthful of beans, Goodenuff said, "Weather report says fog's moving in, we'll have work around it. If it starts raining hard we might have to wait it out."

He looked at the men sitting at the table. Dean knew that Dave had a good sense of how to run things, trusted him. Dave was sizing up his crew in light of bad weather, figuring out who would keep their head when visibility dropped to zero and you were bringing down trees without being able to see their tops.

Goodenuff paired Dean with Willy, and Dean didn't really like that, because Willy was a lazy bastard with old-school notions about hazard and risk, a cowboy. _Dave probably knows that it'll make me more careful, _Dean thought, getting to his feet and nodding to the cook, who grinned through his beard.

He stood a moment, remembering. A cleared throat at his shoulder and he turned to see Dave looking at him slantwise, his big cheery face somber. "Not as good as Lori's beans," he said softly.

"Nope," Dean agreed.

"Knocked the heart clean out of Uncle G, what happened," Dave continued, turning his ear protectors over in his blunt hands. "Sold me the company, bought a fishing guide outfit on the coast."

Dean didn't want to talk about it, suddenly, didn't want to remember, and so he turned away, walked out the tent flap and into a fog so thick he wondered if they'd even be able to find the _block_, let alone the trees.

It was terrifying work. Dean listened for Willy's saw, and twice he had to go find him in the slash, twice Willy was just having a smoke and grinned ear to ear, asked Dean if he was bearhunting. _Supposed to call out if you're taking a break_, Dean thought, marching back to his section, double-stamping each step to make sure he didn't slip on the mold-slicked logs. _Supposed to check on you if I don't hear your saw, asshole._

Still, as the day progressed into afternoon and the rain started, Dean was glad of Willy's slackness when it came to safety spot checks. The woods were dark, rain and fog blurring edges to gradations of gray and charcoal and rust and fawn. The movement of the fog made him jump and he was stopping his saw to listen far more often than usual. And it wasn't as though he could be watchful all the time, either, because a tree falling at a bad angle would kill you quicker than any fucking supernatural wolf.

What had Sam called it? Big Bad Wolf. Right. Just some weird Balkan take on the usual run-of-the-mill werewolf, one with a fetish for…

Shut himself up, concentrated on the tree he was bringing down.

Once done, he took a break, blew the short signals on his whistle which Willy probably didn't hear or wasn't listening for. Great. He sat down on the stump, brought out his coffee thermos. He was sweating, felt it run down between his shoulder blades and he wiggled his shoulders slightly to reduce the tickle.

The rain started just then and he looked up and swore. Sometimes, rain was gentle, almost like mist, like ocean spray. Other times it was like a crappy motel showerhead, a half-hearted drizzle. This was a five-star luxury hotel rain, water pressure like a fire hose, belting down with enough force that Dean got up and sought shelter.

Under the lower branches of a young cedar, Dean finished his coffee, heard only the drum of rain, surveyed his next tree. If he felled it to the west, which was the way it wanted to go anyway, they'd need to bring the hauler up that incline, which was a good open area only populated by ten-foot green saplings. Easy, he'd sweep out the saplings, make room for the hauler, fell the tree and they'd be set. Enough time to do that before Dave called it quits, because this damned weather wasn't going to let up anytime soon.

He pulled on helmet and goggles, the ear protectors, scanned the fog, couldn't see anything worth worrying about. Pulled hard on the Stihl, and it jumped to life, as powerful as the Impala after a tune-up. Pressed the safety catch and engaged the chain. With a machine like this, cutting the saplings was like slicing through butter with a hot knife. Essentially a supercharged weedwacker, the chainsaw mowed the saplings down about a foot off the ground, and they stood up at an angle: _pig's ears_, the loggers called them.

Methodically, he took out a wide swathe of them, then throttled down, disengaged the chain, surveyed his direction, looked to his tree.

It had disappeared.

While he'd been concentrating on the immediate job of taking out the saplings, the fog had crept in around him and he could barely see twenty feet, let alone across the clearing to his tree. The rain drummed down in spite of the fog. _Christ, what weather_ he thought, pushing back his helmet and resting the ear protectors on his shoulders while the engine idled.

The Wolf was loud enough to hear above the low chug of the resting engine.

A rasping pant, a huge animal with a mutilated tongue, moving in the fog. Dean stood very still, not thinking of anything, only the sound of it and the direction and the likely range. _Remember how fast it is_. He had a saw in his hands, an edged weapon, technically, very, very tiny edges that could move like lightning.

But he had to let it come inside his reach.

There was an old stump to his left, one cut maybe ten years prior, overgrown with mosses and dark with mold. An old cedar, the center of which was brick red, would crumble in your hands like sand. If he got on top of that, he'd have the high ground, could sweep down on this thing at an angle, just like he had the saplings, because the Wolf might be big as a grizzly. Hard to say what size it would be this time, but he'd rather be on top of it than underneath.

Far in the distance, he could hear Willy's saw. Stupid dumbfuck wouldn't notice any of this. Just as well, because Dean was fixing on making some noise. _No way it gets away this time_, he thought_. No way._

The idling saw in his hands, seventeen pounds of sudden death, Dean took the steps required to jump up onto the stump. Higher than he'd first thought. Good. Fog still obliterating anything more than twenty feet away, a rustle now in the undergrowth, not making itself quiet, too big to be quiet. Too fucking sure of itself to be quiet.

Dean balanced there for only a moment, his weight and the weight of the saw, and the sudden unanticipated swing of his heavy belt throwing him off just enough. He lifted one foot to compensate, immediately set it back down again as all this weight continued its shift to the side – belt, saw – and didn't screef his spot, no time to, and his foot slipped.

He'd heard the guys talking about what it was like to have a sudden accident on the job. A bump, that's how they described it. A bump and you looked down and you were missing a leg. A bump, the chainsaw kicks back and there goes your hand. A bump, the chain breaks on the drag, whips round, and severs your arm.

This wasn't like that, not at all.

Overbalanced, Dean toppled backwards off the stump, landed flat on his back, the saw tumbling to the side, taking one quick bounce into the slash. Dean didn't bounce, not even once.

This was no _bump_; this was the most amazing, appalling pain he'd ever felt in his life, which was saying something. This was such a complete, encompassing shock that he lay there for a moment, unable to breathe, unable to release anything, not a whimper or a scream. The sky was red and the blood pounded in his head and he was actually afraid to look. He wanted to curl up in a ball, but his whole body was rigid.

The red sky brightened to pearl above him, cleared with his sudden intake of breath. He let out a thin hiss of air as he raised his head to look at what he'd done to himself.

_Oh god_, and felt the nausea creep up his throat. _Oh, god_.

There, emerging from his right side in the wide soft space between the last rib and hipbone, dark with his blood, was one of the pig's ears. Sharper than a vampire's stake, he had fallen at such an angle that it had pierced him from behind and came straight through skin and clothing and godaloneknew what else to point up at the sky like an angry preacher showing him God.

_Fuck._

His head dropped back to the ground, the rain splattering his face, cold. Trying not to jar anything, he swallowed, grit his teeth and turned his head to the side. He couldn't even see his saw.

_And what are you going to do with the goddamn saw, Winchester? Cut yourself out from this? Wander around with a stake through your side like a fucking Popsicle?_

He started laughing at that, stopped himself quickly because it hurt too much and it was too close to losing it completely. Took measured shallow breaths, concentrating on what he knew. Whistle. He should get his whistle. It was in the pouch on his utility belt, right hand side – but his belt had twisted when he'd fallen, and the pouch was now in the small of his back. _Maybe I can get my hand back there_.

Tried it and blacked out.

Didn't take long to come to. At least he didn't think it was long; no way to tell, really. It was the voice that yanked him back, brought him round with a thundering sense of danger more abruptly and suddenly than smelling salts under his nose.

"Hi there, kid," the Wolf said, crouching next to him, hands dangling loosely over bent knees, a knowing smile playing on his lips, eyes traveling the length of Dean's literally pinned body, finally resting on his face. Close enough to touch. "Thought I'd find you up here."

A pause and Dean could see that the Wolf was excited, though it appeared very still and contained, a shaken bottle of champagne ready for the New Year countdown to midnight.

_My, what big fucking teeth you have_, Dean thought, dancing just on the edge of hysteria.

The Wolf shifted slightly, reached out a trembling taloned hand, then withdrew suddenly, a child overwhelmed by the amount of presents under the tree.

"Talk to me," the Wolf said.

_Seattle WA, 1992_

Third time lucky.

The first phone had no receiver, the next no connection. Third one, Dean got a dial tone, which qualified as luck tonight. No money of course, not even a quarter, covered in blood, rain coming down in earnest now. He glanced around. This was the shittiest part of a shitty neighborhood, several blocks from the diner, closer to the tracks, maybe a ten minute run from Sam if he went flat out, fifteen to the old motel in the opposite direction.

Certain that the phone worked, Dean left it off the hook, came out of the booth, found a fist-sized rock in the adjacent parking lot. Wound up and let fly and it shattered the streetlight with a satisfying pop. He stood breathing hard for a full minute, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the sudden darkness. The parking lot was back from the road, and the phone booth further still, traffic at a minimum, the occasional wet swoosh of rubber and rain. He didn't want anything sneaking up on him.

He jammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans, worried what was there like lucky charms, the knife, the knife thank god, a piece of paper. Pulled both out as he went back into the booth, opened the knife just in case.

He took a deep breath and dialed operator, whispered the numbers quickly, over and over like a mantra, nothing more than that, not his name, no pleasantries.

Slid down the side of the booth when his legs decided that they'd had enough. He didn't much care how many drunks had used this booth as a toilet, or how recently, he just collapsed on the cement, so cold now nothing much mattered. The knife in one hand, the thick paper in the other. He narrowed his eyes in the half-light of far neon, wondering what the paper was, what kind of receipt or note.

Half a hundred dollar bill.

Over the tinny reception, he heard the connecting line ringing several times before a young female voice picked up – _United Mission Helpline_ -- and he heard the operator say_ I have a collect call from Seattle, Washington. Will you accept the charges?_

The voice repeated_ – Seattle? _like she'd never heard of it before, like it was the name of a city in Uzbekistan or Mongolia. There was a lengthy pause, the word _Seattle_ passed around the helpline's basement room like a bowl of candies, then the voice he'd been waiting for.

"Yes! Yes, I'll accept the charges," the voice said, slightly breathless, but deep and even, like the snow in that Christmas carol.

Dean swallowed again, looked at his bloody hand, folded the ripped bill over and over. Only dark stains on his fingers and a line running down the back of his hand to his wrist, drying now, but he rubbed his fingers against his jeans, holes in both knees, drew them up to his chest. Christ, he was cold.

"Dean? Dean, is that you?" Not so much demanding as relieved, and Dean's breath came out shaky as all hell. He bit the inside of his mouth, worried the spot where he'd already chewed it bloody. Earlier that night. _Don't think about that_. Banged his head back against the thick plexi of the booth, once, hard enough to hurt. There, that steadied him a little. Still couldn't say anything, wasn't even sure he wanted to. Wasn't this enough? That he was here, had asked the operator to dial?

"It's okay, Dean. Oh, thank God. We had no idea where you were. Hold on, I have your dad on another line--

He couldn't help it then. He couldn't. He tried to hold it in, tried to hang on to it, because it had kept him going for twenty-five days, but his resolve suddenly turned to butter in his hands, slippery and warm. He banged his head against the plexi again, just to stop the huge thing in his chest from getting out.

He put away the knife, afraid he'd use it. Instead, he slowly took a corner from the bill, ripped it off, let the wind and rain take it away.

"Dean, listen to me," and Pastor Jim's soft voice filled the line again, and the minister had never sounded so calm, "Your dad's frantic. He's been in an Oregon hospital for a couple of weeks, in a coma, no I.D. That nest he went after – well, they had him for awhile, but he's fine now-"

Dean ripped another piece off the bill, then another until it was scattered in tiny pieces at the bottom of the fetid phone booth. The only thing he could hear was distant traffic, his own breathing, the hollow noise of a church basement a thousand miles away. His breathing was wonky, so he tried to make it even. Jesus, he was going to scare the pastor. He _had_ scared him. Them. Just breathing. Concentrating on that. Dad was alive. That would be enough.

"I have him on the other line; he's about an hour out of Seattle, been driving all day. Phoned the schools, the motel, you guys haven't been there for awhile, have you?" Nothing of accusation in it, but it still stabbed through Dean like a knife.

_Oh god, what have I done?_

Pastor Jim was still there, quietly waiting him out. "Dean, I'm going to put the phone down for second. I need to tell your dad that I've got you. That you're safe." A pause, and Dean knew that the pastor was gathering together his words, assembling them like a tricky model airplane. "Is Sammy okay? Please-"

And that's what did it.

Fighting though a strangling tightness in his throat so hot it burned, the thin keening noise hardly seemed like something so mundane as _crying_. It was the sound some voiceless creature made as it was throttled to death.

Distantly, he could hear the pastor talking to someone else. _Dad_. Oh god, and he drew a long breath meant to steady, but he couldn't control it anymore, not at all.

Finally, he choked out where he was, the cross-streets, that was all. He could voice that much for Sammy, it was _necessary_. But that was all he was going to say on the subject of these twenty-five days, ever.

--

TBC


	8. Between the Ribs

**Chapter 8/**Between the Ribs

**Huff and Puff: **Gen, PG-13, loads of sordid, violent, and downright creepy scenes, swearing laid on pretty darn thick, and Sam running around like a chicken seeking revenge for its missing head. Canon characters belong to the canon gods; words and other characters belong to me. Me! You heard that Kripke? WIP, but we're pulling into the home stretch.

**My, What Big Betas You Have: **I haveno words left to adequately thank jmm0001 and Lemmypie, other than to say that neither of them are particularly 'big', thought they are 'good' and 'fun'.

**Once Upon a Time:**

There was a Big Bad Wolf who set his sights on our hero Dean. After two harrowing encounters when he was 13 and 18, Dean once again faces the same creature – Ludovic, Lukas, the Wolf – in the woods of Washington State. This time, Sam has his back, or would if Dean would only rely on him. When we last left Dean…jesus, what was he doing again? _Thinks hard_. Right, he had impaled himself on a STAKE, with the Wolf coming on. Meanwhile, Sam is racing down from the treeplanter camp to check up on the lovely Ruby, who has chained herself to a tree at the protest site, which is on the way to the cut block. Racing, yes? In time? Well….

**ETA**: The Mariners were an expansion team, starting in the mid-1970s, which Northface pointed out.

--

"Talk to me," the Wolf – Ludovic, Lukas, whatever name it wanted to take, whatever made him feel more human, or pass for more human – hunched over, shivering. Not with cold, Dean suspected. The creature was much the same as he remembered, a little older. Both of them older. He hoped it would make a difference this time.

Even Ludovic laying eyes on him was somehow thieving, and the whole point of him coming here was to take shit back, not to give it away, so he forced his attention to anything that wasn't the Wolf's cold blue gaze, noticed how Ludovic was barefoot in the soggy slash, ankle tendons stretched taut in his crouch, furred and angular. Dean felt the briefest hover of sharp fingernails at his chest, soft as wasps landing on something sweet. Touch there, and there.

"You don't want to talk to me?" Ludovic murmured, accent bubbling into something that was a trick of the tongue, some sound foreign to human speech. "_Please_." And one inquisitive finger explored the base of the stake, found flesh under cloth.

Ludovic pressed hard like he was trying to get an elevator to come more quickly, and the pain was so fast and complete that Dean didn't even have time to scream before he passed out.

When he came to again, his breathing was ragged, horrified, sky darker now. He chanced a look at Ludovic, still crouched, moving crabwise around him, now at his right side, one hand resting lightly on the bloody stake. One moment of stillness, then Ludovic leaned forward quickly, blurring, and he sniffed the stake, moved his head down, nostrils wide.

_Getting my scent again_, Dean thought, too dazed to be properly revolted.

Dean's left hand closed around a handful of wet leaf mold as he tried to hang on to consciousness, the rain splattering him like some kind of Chinese water torture, no way to wipe it away. The sky was darker, definitely, but that might just be the rain, not the time of day. So hard to know.

Ludovic turned to Dean again, and this time Dean was caught in his blue stare. _Stealing bits of me._ A smear of Dean's blood smudged a line where Ludovic's cheek had pressed against the pointed sapling. The hand still rested there, threat implicit. His nails were the streaky sepia of goat's hooves, long and curving. Ludovic's other hand reached out and he bent down to Dean's right ear, inhaling deeply, fingers brushing through Dean's hair – _trying to find the scar_, Dean thought – a low growl in his throat.

"I have something for you," Ludovic breathed, and he pulled back, eyes gleaming like a vampire's, catching the last of the hazy light. Pulled out of somewhere – and Dean realized right then that he was drifting, because he hadn't noticed where Ludovic had pulled it from – a perfectly flat, almost mint hundred dollar bill. Except it wasn't folded in half, it was torn.

And Dean didn't understand at first, because it had been fifteen years, and he had tried so hard not to remember certain things. Especially not that. Because that was blood money, that was everything black and shameful, was the worst of what he was in one piece of paper and why the fuck would he want to remember that? It hit him worse than a physical blow, and he'd almost have preferred Ludovic to jostle the stake again.

The swallow the Wolf took was obvious, mostly because his neck was long and exposed and Dean wanted nothing more than to draw a blade across it. No weapon this time, though, and even if he had a knife, he doubted he could get to it. He could barely move. The Wolf's hand folded the bill and put it in Dean's jean pocket, the left one, where it wouldn't jar the stake. Put it in deep and so slowly Dean thought he might pass out again.

He closed his eyes, willing the nausea to pass. It didn't, not really, because in the lowering darkness, he knew Ludovic was changing, remembered from that first time how it had been, the hoarse grunts and snarls covered by his own voice, soothing the Wolf with inane baseball talk. The time trapped under the tree with fuckwit Proctor, how he'd used every breath of persuasion to hold the Wolf off. Given it what it wanted, just to stay alive.

_And that's what kept it coming back for more_, Dean thought. _And Tanya paid, and Lori paid, and not a word does this motherfucker get from me today. Not one word._

"You know," the Wolf managed in a moment of oral clarity, lying beside Dean in the cool rain, its body misshapen and growing larger and more dangerous, "once…inside, it's easier. Much…easier. They rail and they scream. They beg for release. Eventually they tell me everything. But you-" And Dean's eyes flickered open, not feeling any hand upon him now, only rain and cold. A mistake, because the Wolf was horrific and close and not even nominally human anymore. A cold sweat broke over him and he started to shake. Shock, he knew. He was going into shock.

About fucking time.

The Wolf sidled close, a big beast, coarse gray hair, wiry like a terrier, all teeth and saliva and eyes that burned. "You," it choked out. The Wolf suddenly shook and was more manlike again, the hair covered with clothing, but Dean's vision doubled and he had to close his eyes once more. The sweat poured from him, mixed with the rain, which hadn't stopped the whole time.

"You…inside…" and the Wolf lowered his head to Dean's neck, teeth sharp, not human, "it's not forever," and a thin thread of anguish wove through the voice, "I wish it was forever. Only till the new moon. But you'll talk. They all…talk…" and the teeth found flesh, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as being impaled on a fucking stake, "it's never…enough. You, though. You're different."

Dean shook his head, vehemently. _I'm not going to be enough, asshole. You are nothing but hunger, and nothing is going to satisfy you_.

Rough dog-tongue lapping the sweat and the rainwater and maybe new blood from his neck and then his face and if Dean could have done anything right then, he would have. One hand came up, then fell, and he instead pulled his head to one side uselessly. The Wolf moved with him.

It was huge and dark and on top of him.

Instinctively, Dean raised his right hand to push it away, but a sharp whipcord of pain ran up his side so quickly and with such a rush of blinding light that he found himself with his hand fisted in the Wolf's shirt, not pushing away, just holding on. Only a moment and he saw the Wolf's smile. Somehow, this had been a mistake, but Dean couldn't see how.

Not until the Wolf took Dean's hand in its own, and pulled it under the shirt to the warm and narrow lupine chest, fingers like a blade, forcing Dean's hand in, right into flesh, between sternum and rib. Dean's hand, then his whole arm, and then _more_ as the world swam blue and red and Dean thought, _this is crazy_. And then couldn't think because the pain right then was more than he could possibly bear, even him, who had borne so much and so often.

The Wolf got Dean's voice in the end, not as a caress, but as a scream.

It took Dean inside like a snake swallowing a sheep whole, gorged on what was desired. Something precious, something hoarded against lean times. Something to be absorbed over the long haul when night fell and everyone was safe in their beds. Inside.

And his.

--

_What the fuck was Willy doing? Just sitting there, enjoying the view?_ Dave stumped over, heavy boots kicking shit out of the way, good light almost gone – did Willy not even hear the air horn signal from downhill, from where the mechanical faller was clearing out the smaller trees? Shit, Dave couldn't see a thing down there for the fog. It wasn't much better uphill, either, especially with the rain coming down like it was. Early evening dark, quitting time already. Willy would fucking listen to _that_.

"Willy!" he shouted and Willy didn't shift from the stump, just tossed the remainder of his coffee into the bushes and grinned big.

"Hey, boss. Some rain. Fucking dark, eh?"

Dave looked around, ears sharp. He heard the sounds of machinery, of the hauler, but that was behind him and down the hill. He didn't hear any saws. "Where's Dino?" This part of the cut block had been worked ten years ago, most of the big trees gone, only smaller thirty-year-olds to take out, lots of hand-clearing in the slash. Not as dangerous as bringing down the big logs, but the incline was steep, too steep for the larger machines, had to be done by hand. Still worth the trouble for a smaller outfit.

Willy shrugged. "Checked up on each other about a half hour ago. Had my saw running, haven't heard anything."

_Uh, and isn't that when you're supposed to check, dumbfuck?_ Dave thought, but didn't say, because Willy was pretty good at his job most days and squeezing pennies out of this forest was getting harder and harder. "Where'd you last see him?"

Willy gestured vaguely in two directions at once. _Oh, well, this would be easy._ Dave brought out his whistle, ready to blow the signal for 'all done, bring it in'. Had it between his lips, thinking about how he wanted a smoke there not a whistle, when they heard the scream.

Not close, uphill, past the screen of second growth trees. The terrible sound went on long enough to be recognizable as human, then choked off piteously. They both stood for a moment, the mist moving like a living thing, dark ferns bent with the rain, smell of exhaust and rot. The forest floor tilted at an angle, steep terrain this, loamy, and the earth didn't register the sound of their footfalls as they raced towards the scream, wondering where it had come from, and if whoever had made it was still alive. They wondered these things, but the scream didn't come again.

--

It was too rainy and dark to be driving as fast as he was. He didn't care.

Sam took the corner wildly, and the back wheels slid to the side, bumped into something hard that didn't seem to alter the integrity of the vehicle in any significant way. The windshield wipers were only marginally effective; the road he almost didn't recognize, it had been so washed by the day's downpour.

The protest camp was easy enough to spot, though. Over the bridge, more signs now, several news vans with satellite feeds, lots of reporters with golf umbrellas, must be preparing for the five o'clock news. And cops, way more cops, both State and what looked to be the local sheriff's office.

The protestors had multiplied like tribbles: more tents, more fires, more blue tarps tossed over branches and secured with colorful climbing ropes. Sodden Tibetan prayer flags hung limply from between trees, perhaps put up to look cheerful. He wondered where Ruby was in this circus. He parked by the side of the road and stuffed the bag of food in his knapsack, jammed the machete in beside it. He pulled his raincoat around him, glad of it for once, despite the reflective tape and the stupid barrage of adjustable toggles. Too many decisions for a piece of clothing.

Clerks in the Seattle outfitter's store had turned when they'd heard Dean's delighted and slightly malicious laugh. Dean had spent a lot of time adjusting the toggles so that the coat cinched tightly around Sam's waist, or so the hood folded in on itself, or so the underarm vents were open. _Fucking underarm vents, you are so set, dude_, Dean had snickered and Sam suddenly missed him fiercely.

The shock of light startled Sam for a moment, but it was only a news team testing its equipment. He skirted around them, looking for the cedar he'd climbed before to see Eileen. Found it easily, a knot of reporters and company reps gathered below. _Company reps_ and he had an idea.

A white pickup truck with the multinational's logo on the side sat across the muddy road from the gaggle of journalists, a bored looking man in the cab watching the proceedings with a long and practiced eye. Sam rapped on the window, which slowly unrolled.

"Yeah?" the company man said. Hardhat, reflective vest. He was ready for the field, maybe some kind of inspector hitching a ride up to the cut block and waylaid here at the protest camp so the communications officer could make sure the company spin was intact.

"Hi. My brother's a logger with the Goodenauer outfit, the one that's working the contract up on the block?" Got a nod, sufficient encouragement. "So I was wondering – are you in contact with them? Can you radio their office or something? Just with the rain-" Okay, and this was going to sound stupid, but this guy was bored out of his head, was looking for anything to keep himself from sliding into a coma.

Sam pulled out the big guns, the Sincere Face. "I just want to make sure he's all right."

The guy took a long look at the treeplanter clothes, the shaggy hair, everything screaming _them_, not _us_. The beseeching forest-dark eyes.

"What's his name?" the guy finally drawled, coming to a sit, marginally more alert than two seconds ago, maybe happy that Sam wasn't offering to talk about spotted owls or damage to watersheds.

Sam gave the name and waited until the crackle of the radio got to the logging camp, and the guy had a quick coded conversation with whoever was there. Finally, he turned to Sam. "The crew hasn't come in from the block – they should be there soon. It's only a twenty-minute drive, more maybe in this weather. You got wheels?"

Sam nodded. "It's okay. I'll drop something off here then head up. Thanks."

Lukas had said that he'd take both if Sam wasn't quick, but there was nothing quick about rain and washed out logging roads. _Jesus_. Usually, when it came to things like this – supernatural things – Sam didn't worry about Dean too much, had seen the bloody mess Dean could make of just about any monster. Usually. This wasn't usual, though, this was weird and old and _obsessed_. The Winchesters had been in Washington State any number of times over the years. That '97 stint in Tacoma had been the longest, Sam thought, deciding to try the tent city to see if someone there knew where Ruby was.

But they'd spent a couple of weeks on the San Juans once, and another time in the area around Concrete. Neither of those times had anything unusual happened. Well, other than the usual unusual. But not a Wolf.

Earlier, maybe? Sam wondered, and something niggled. Not the mountains, not deep forest, where you'd expect a Wolf to be hiding out. The city. It was sharp, this sudden memory, one that had been tucked away with any number of truly unpleasant ones. Sam had a library of them, catalogued, numbered, shelved. He didn't like looking at them, they just made him mad. And John Winchester deserved his sons to be mad at him, god alone knew, but Sam wasn't really ready to deal with the anger he had, mostly because it scared the shit out of him.

And it wasn't the point, was it? Being mad at Dad for…stood blinking in the rain. Dad had disappeared. He hadn't come back. _Where's Dad?_ Almost heard the voice in his ear, skinny scared kid, hungry as sin.

Mrs. Legris.

She'd been nice, and Sam remembered her precision haircut, the way she smelled of burnt coffee and Play-doh, the swathes of Indonesian batiks she habitually wore. Just that, though. Damn, it had been Seattle, maybe fifteen years ago. And Dad hadn't come back, not for a long time.

Hard to remember, because Dean had never spoken about it, not even once, and collective memories were things built up with mementos and spoken word, with photos and details accreting until it was some kind of complete story – messy, inaccurate, but shared. And this was not. This was a faulty half-memory of a young boy, whispering of fear and cold and hunger and things that neither his father nor his brother would speak of.

_Dean curled up on the front seat of the Impala, bleeding, not saying anything, upsetting in his uncharacteristic silence. Dad stroking his hair and Dean flinching, pulling away into a tighter knot. Dad's rumbling voice, soft and demanding – who did this, who did this – promising violent revenge like early Christmas, if Dean would just open his mouth._

That, a flash, nothing more.

"Hey, are you chaining up?" Astrid's voice, a hand on his arm and Sam was jerked back from memory by today, which was plenty distracting enough. Astrid's serious pale eyes were on him jackhammer intense and Sam stepped back.

Shaking his head, he looked beyond her into the squatters camp. "No, but I brought some food for Ruby. Where's she at?" He smiled, knowing that it worked. For the first time, Astrid gave him a look that might be construed as 'warm'.

"Down there, next to the Granny's tree. See that spruce?" And Sam didn't know a spruce from a telephone pole, but saw where she pointed. "She'll be glad to see you," she finished, turning away to trudge through the downpour to where protest organizers were speaking to some press.

Ruby wasn't alone; a photographer was taking her picture. The chain wrapped around the tree and her waist, looped through her clothing. How the hell was she going to sleep? Go to the toilet? Sam didn't want to know. He was sure he wouldn't like the answers. And she was good and locked; thick kryptonite bike locks secured the chains. Nothing a good chaincutter wouldn't handle in three seconds flat if the police decided to move in, but there would be cameras everywhere and she was a very pretty girl. She was making it hard for them.

That brought a smile again, her making things hard, and he slipped off the backpack and pulled out the food while Ruby called hello. He tried to make sure the photographer didn't see the machete, didn't want those sorts of questions. The photographer finished up and Sam passed Ruby a sandwich, which she ate immediately and with enthusiasm.

"God, this is boring," she said. "You look worried."

He did? He did. His brow furrowed further. "Yeah, I can't reach Dean. He's out in this weather someplace." He cleared his throat. "Hey, has Lukas been around?"

Her Grecian nose wrinkled. "What's with you and Lukas? Yeah, I saw him earlier, mid-afternoon maybe." She shivered, an invitation.

Sam came closer, reading the signs correctly, leaned into her. "He's not right, Ruby. Trust me on this one. If he comes close, and you're alone--"

She pushed him away. "You see all these people? Reporters? Photographers? Cops? I'm not alone, okay?" She responded poorly to possessive, which was actually good, Sam thought.

One breath, then she pulled him to her again, her point made. Sam was quiet on the subject. What was he going to say, anyway?

Someone distantly shouted, "Hey!" and Sam paid no attention, because Ruby was warm, dammit, and he didn't feel like moving at the moment, but then it was repeated and Ruby, ruddy cheeked from the cold rain maybe, muttered against his chest, "I think someone's trying to get your attention."

So Sam turned, and the company guy was walking quickly towards him, orange safety vest glowing in the news crew's lights. Almost running, face gray and taut…face _panicked_…and Sam's heart sizzled straight to his mouth.

"We need to get up to the cut block," the company guy said, looking anxiously past Sam to Ruby, chained to a tree his company was desperate to cut. He wasn't going to say anything in front of her, so Sam kissed Ruby on her ruddy cheek, whispered goodbye, walked a few steps with the company man, who had taken his elbow in agitated hurry.

Sam snatched it back, annoyed. "What's going on?"

"They don't know, not exactly," the company guy said. "The crew can't find your brother. He didn't come back in. Something's happened. Best not to let the press…"

"Fuck the press," Sam returned harshly over his shoulder, already running for his truck.

--

He groaned, rolled over, his elbow hit something hard and he tried to pretend that he didn't care, but he did. He cared because it was all so wrong, because this wasn't where he was supposed to be.

Dean blinked his eyes open, and everything spun. He closed his eyes quickly, and waited for the spinning to stop. Cautiously, he tried again, felt as though his brain had been rewired by stoners in the a/v closet. Everything was blurry at first, and dark too, and he couldn't focus on anything, just buried himself in the sound of heavy rain splattering against – a car roof? But this wasn't the Impala, god alone knew he'd woken up enough times in the front seat of the Impala, banging himself against the steering wheel, all sore from being hungover, or just sleeping the wrong way in a car that wasn't really made for sleeping in.

The seats weren't leather, didn't slip, and his clothes caught on the napped fabric. All around him, a deep illuminated red. He listened to his own breathing for a while, staring at the stitched patterns in the roof above his resting head, trying not to completely lose it. It would be possible, of course, to do that here, to come unraveled like a badly made sweater.

Because he knew where he was.

He sat in the front seat of a late-model Cadillac, complete darkness outside, nothing but the interior dashboard lights glowing hazy yellow and green. The steering wheel wrapped in leather like he remembered, the squared lettering of the instruments, the fancy script spelling Cadillac and the goofy crest.

Slowly, Dean sat up, alert, wishing for a weapon, but he had nothing, just his work shirt over the t-shirt, jeans, heavy calk boots. Not even the safety belt and…

Fuck, he looked down to see the dark streaks and a punctured tear on his shirt where the stake had gone in. Well, technically, where the stake had come out, he supposed. He glanced quickly into the back seat: nothing, it was dark, but empty.

Gritting his teeth, although it didn't hurt, it was just that he was slightly _afraid_, he lifted his white t-shirt, wanting to see what the damage looked like. A ragged hole in his side, that was what, crusted, dark. But not bleeding and not hurting, and that told Dean something else about where he now found himself.

Inside.

The idea of a huge hole in his side that didn't bleed and didn't hurt wasn't exactly making him feel calm, so he dropped his inspection and took a deep breath, hand on the door handle. _Get me the fuck out of here._ Eased it up, but the chrome handle, thin and tapering like a rib, wouldn't budge. The little electric toggle buttons for the windows and door locks glittered in the half-light. He flicked them, to no effect and maybe a little more strenuously than needed. _Okay_. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears, pounding as though he'd been running. _It's okay, Winchester, take your time, no hurry._

Everything was locked, including the glove compartment. The wipers didn't work, neither did the headlights. No keys in the ignition, no underdash wires to strike an igniting spark. Stuck here, inside a goddamn theater set, a perfect simulation of a Cadillac. Except it wasn't. It was the very same Cadillac from fifteen years ago, because that was how the Wolf played.

It smelled of moldy damp and fresh meat and dog hair and it turned Dean's stomach.

He brushed his forearm against the driver's side window, and it was cold. He could only see the pale oval of his own face. He was startled by how scared he looked. _Stop being such a pussy._ Pressing his face against the cool glass, hands cupped to shade out reflections, he tried to see what was out there.

Spattering rain. No light, just what spilled from the car itself. The cool was nice, though. Thought that, then realized a cold blue eye was inches from his face on the other side of the driver's window and he scrambled back from the door with a huff of shock, heart pounding. _Damn_.

The car rocked slightly as something big moved outside it, the shock absorbers groaning, screech of metal bending, but Dean couldn't see anything other than running drops on the windows and his own distorted reflection.

Then nothing, just rain. One minute, then two. Silence and stillness, nothing moving other than the rise and fall of his own chest.

Dean didn't precisely relax, it wasn't the kind of place where you could do that. Eventually, he stretched his legs, tried the door handle again. He climbed into the backseat, tried those handles and window buttons. He searched under the seats, tried taking apart the backseat to get into the trunk, see what was there. The seat cushions were solid and intact and he'd need more than his bare hands to remove them.

His watch had stopped working. Typical, he thought, tapping it with a fingernail as though that would fix it. _Anything to keep me disoriented_. Finally, he stretched out on the backseat, kicked off his muddy boots, wiggled his toes.

He couldn't believe it, but he was bored.

"What kind of radio reception does the inside of a wolf get?" he wondered out loud, and climbed back into the front seat. He tried all the buttons, turned up the volume, but nothing. "Shit reception, that's what," he muttered, glad to hear his own voice. It was too quiet, just the hush of rain. If it was one thing he hated, it was being alone.

Time passed; without a working watch, or the change of day to night and day again, Dean had no way of knowing how much time was going by. After a while, he couldn't even guess – three hours? Five? More? It must be almost morning, he thought. No matter what he tried, he couldn't sleep. He wasn't hungry, didn't have to take a leak.

"Think these windows are made of safety glass?" He banged his heel against the window, but not meaningfully. "Where the fuck would I go, anyway?" he continued. "Wandering around the inside of a fucking Wolf." There was the eye that had been watching him, though. He shuddered. At least it was outside, not like last time, when the Wolf had been in here.

Like most things last seen when young, the Cadillac seemed smaller than it had when he was thirteen.

"This is going to be a long wait." He breathed against the window, wrote his name on the pane before it disappeared. "Even Steve McQueen had a tennis ball."

He tried to remember all the words of the Metallica back catalog. Sang them. Loudly. Then listed every girl he'd ever slept with, in order. Rated the experiences one through fifty. Recited the peasant's monologue from the Holy Grail. The starting lineup and pitching staff of the Mariners and Royals, mid-1970s through to the present day. ERAs, RBIs, and batting averages. The area codes of all the cities and towns he'd ever lived in. All Sam's teachers, starting with Miss Eliza in kindergarten. Ranked them in terms of relative hotness. He'd always paid way more attention to Sam's teachers than his own.

Slowly, a wind picked up outside the car. It grew stronger, and the car groaned, buffeted by the wind. Dean's running chatter petered out and he sat up, looked out the window, but saw nothing.

_Shit_. Eased back into the seat, wished he felt remotely tired. Or hungry. Or anything. He thought about poking around in his wound, just as a diversion, but there was no way he was _that_ bored.

The name and dispatch method of every monster he knew. _That_ would take a while.

The worst of it was, he had no idea what he was waiting for, but knew he wouldn't like it much when it got here.

--

"You gotta get some sleep, man." Dave Goodenauer bent down to where Sam slumped against a tree trunk, a Styrofoam cup dangling precariously in his lax grip.

Sam straightened, swirled the coffee around in the cup, shaking his head. "I'm okay." He glanced at his watch: almost five in the morning, still no sign of Dean. At least the rain had stopped. All his nerve endings were exposed, he felt as though his skin had been stripped raw. Livid, he was _livid_, and coffee was not the main thing keeping him going, not by a long mile.

Neither he nor Dave, nor Stanley the Company Man had had any sleep yet. Dave because he was genuinely worried about Dean, Stanley because he was afraid of a media relations disaster.

Fortunately for Stanley, Sam didn't want media attention either, so they'd been searching the forest by themselves. The whole crew had been pressed into service, and Willy had taken them to where he'd last seen Dean. Goodenuff had ordered Stottlemeyer to bring up the big lights and the detailed contour map, assigned them a grid. It was slow going with the rain and the dark.

Sam had watched Dave blow up at Willy; the rat-faced guy, Brent, had prevented the huge and glowering Goodenuff Dave from actually getting physical with the faller. Now Brent was coming in from the bush, taking a cup of coffee from the urn that the camp cook had brought up to them. No logging today, apparently, not until they found Dean.

A scream, Dave had said. It had sounded human, not a cougar's yowl, or the roar of a bear. _It's got him_, Sam thought. Sat against the tree, watching the despairing look on Brent Proctor's stricken face. _I wasn't fast enough. I should have killed it._

Brent sat down next to Sam, shaking his head. "Not a goddamn clue. It's a fucking jungle though, and with the rain…" He sighed. "Your brother wouldn't have gotten picked off by a bear. You know that."

Sam turned, blinked once, surprised. "How would I know that?" His voice was utterly calm, a trick. A practiced trick.

Brent wriggled as though he had hives. "You know. How he talks to them."

The day brightened incrementally and Sam could see the awkward sincerity on Brent's skinny face. Some good weather finally, they might even see sun; the sky was streaked like smokehouse bacon, strips of pink running with white and gold.

"Dean talks to bears?" Well, this was news. There were all kinds of things Sam didn't know about Dean, though. Every day demonstrated that.

"Well, _yeah_," like Sam was a moron. Brent launched into the world's most improbable story: Dean trapped under a tree, the bear, Dean sweet talking it, Brent drifting into a comfortable daze while it happened. Goodenuff stood beside them, took over the story when Brent admitted he'd been wired up the wazoo with morphine. Dave's story was even more bizarre: Dean had broken his arm, but had nevertheless picked a fight with Ludovic, the timber scout, who'd been run off by their camp cook, the one who'd dropped Dean off at their family's apartment in Tacoma.

"He never told you any of this?" Dave asked, mouth twisting under his blond beard.

Sam shook his head. _No, he didn't tell me any of this._

"Think I still owe him some money from that. Never collected his last pay packet." That dropped into silence, because Dave had been about to offer the money to Sam, and that was territory neither wanted to get into.

Sam stood up, crunched the cup in his hands. "I need to get the crew chief's truck back to him." He needed to find Lukas, more to the point. "I have a satellite phone and there's a radio in the truck." They stood quietly for a minute, Sam's raw nerves humming. _I should be finding him, not remembering him._

"We'll keep looking. If we don't find anything in the next hour or so, we should call search and rescue."

Sam nodded once, and turned back to the mountain, wondering where on earth his brother was. _He isn't dead_, he told himself firmly. _People in our family disappear all the time. They always come back_. And he didn't believe that either.

--

Remarkable that he could be here, in this car, and not remember certain things. By now he was trying to: what had the Wolf done, exactly, fifteen years ago? It had been dirty, yeah, but more than just a pervert getting his rocks off. Had been more like he wanted to…wanted to…

And his mind shied from that, seeing shadows. He'd run; he'd heard his mother's voice and he'd run. He thought that might have been the last time he'd had her inside his head, that night. For a long time after she'd died, he'd heard her voice, usually when he was avoiding homework, or skipping out of class, or about to do something deliberately antagonistic to Sam. But she'd been here, in this car, and she hadn't told him off, she'd told him to get himself out of there.

It gave him no comfort now, remembering that.

_I wish it was forever. Only till the new moon_. And now Dean knew what that meant. A whole month here, more or less. A whole month inside, and then? None of the others had ever come back. He wouldn't either.

He moved suddenly, stretched, had already figured out the best way to do sit ups and push ups in the confined space. His side wasn't bothering him at all, not unless he looked at it and even then it was only psychological. Of the mind. He would go crazy here before long. Tried to push that down, because it had a really unpleasant laugh, a drunk at the bar on a weeklong bender.

He took out his wallet, threw it on the dashboard. He'd already looked at its contents, made anagrams out of words like 'license' and 'detective' and tried to see how many new words he could make out of the phrase 'Singer Auto Self Service Salvage Yard'. His other pockets were empty.

Almost empty.

Something hard and folded hid at the bottom of his front pocket and he drew it out: a perfect one-hundred dollar bill, whole and ready to spend. He swallowed, flattened it out on the dashboard. He'd been paid for. He had taken half of it, promised and been promised. And now he was here and there was nothing much to be done about it.

He'd taken the money, and Tanya had been ripped to pieces. He'd agreed. He'd gotten into the car of his own free will, and somehow Lori had died because of it. _This is on me_.

The car was too red and it smelled of raw meat and sex and things that aroused and repelled and his breath was coming too fast now. Everything stirred up in him, needing to _take care_ and needing to _be a man_, and needing to _bring home the bacon_, and needing to _keep it together_ and none of those things was remotely possible.

He crushed the crisp new bill in his fist and it wasn't enough.

He turned around savagely and smashed his elbow as hard as he could against the driver's side window, shouting. Sounds, not words, that was all, nothing that made sense. His elbow should have gone through the window, or cracked, or shattered all along its length. He knew how this was supposed to work, the gruesome mechanics of breaking bones.

None of those things happened: his elbow bounced back, intact, the window intact, nothing changed. "No," Dean growled. "No, you don't get to keep this. You don't get to keep _me_." He put his boots back on, heavy lethal things that would inflict damage. He braced himself, understanding that this wasn't making sense, that there was no way to make this make sense, and brought both feet against the window at the same time, swung all his weight into it.

His feet rebounded, a horrific shriek of spikes against glass – or what only seemed like glass – everything just as it was before, and Dean wound up, tried again. And again, over and over. The whole time shouting – _screaming_ – his independence, his sense of self, his way of being in the world, and the wind picked up again and he didn't stop until he could barely breathe and his throat was hoarse and he was burning with something that felt like fever but was not.

Only for a moment though, because wind and form combined shifted outside and he saw a gray shape move against the window and the car rocked again. He brought his feet up, not hurting himself, not able to hurt himself, even that taken away from him. He smashed at the window one last time with his boots, then sat up quickly, didn't give himself time to truly think about it, because he saw the blue eyes glowing outside, smelled the thick scent of animal musk, felt used and hollow – and hit his forehead against the window with skull-crushing force.

It didn't even hurt, and he fell back on the seat, an arm over his burning eyes, shaking.

He heard the growls and the half-howls and knew the Wolf was pleased. _Goddamn_, he whispered, over and over and over.

_But you'll talk. They all talk. _

He put one hand on his chest, felt his heart hammering away. It took a long time for it to slow, but he waited, ignoring the grunts of pleasure coming from outside. _I still have something it wants,_ he thought, slowly sitting up. _Fuck you, Ludovic_.

_Not one word_, he thought rubbing his head where it should have hurt but did not. The circling gray outside stilled, stopped its noises. _Fuck you_, Dean thought again, summoning cold as a weapon, and it swirled in him like white flakes in a shaken snow globe. _You'll have to come and get it._

A slow smile crossed his face, one his brother would have recognized and understood. _Keep your eyes peeled, Sam, because I'm going to fuck this asshole up from the inside out._

The howl he heard then was full of longing, but it was far away and Dean took off his boots again, slipped the hundred dollar bill into his wallet.

_You get what you pay for,_ he thought.

--

He wasn't even trying to hide and if Sam hadn't been so shocked to see him, he would have been incensed at his sheer gall. And he was talking to tree-chained Ruby while Tommy and Astrid looked on, obviously on their way down to the town, judging from Tommy's lack of treeplanting gear. Off day today. In all the commotion, he'd forgotten. Tommy saw him first, waved him over.

The knapsack wasn't heavy; a machete didn't weigh hardly anything at all.

Sam swallowed with some difficulty, felt heat creep up his neck. Everything hummed for a second and he slowly got out of the truck, dizzy with murder. Despite this, he couldn't very well lop off Lukas's head in front of bystanders, many of them cops. Not to mention that he needed to know what had happened, and a dead Lukas wasn't going to be saying much of anything.

Lukas altered his stance at Tommy's cry, turned to look at him, and Sam noticed right away that something wasn't right with him. Pale, sweating, more gray than tanned. Their eyes met, and Sam looked away first, found Ruby across the shortening distance. She suddenly looked worried, and Sam knew it was because of the expression on his face, the look that wasn't Dean's _Don't fuck with me_, but more _I'm going to fuck you up_.

His attention flicked to Lukas, then back to her and he couldn't have found a smile right then if his life depended on it. What had he told her about Lukas? One of Ruby's brows quirked: _It's not as though I can walk away from him, can I?_

Shouldering between them, Sam grabbed Lukas's arm, bent his head and whispered, "I need to talk to you," in a voice that none of them had heard before. Hard, harsh, unforgiving. Behind him, Ruby flinched.

"Dude," Tommy said. "We were just heading down to civ. Had a helluva party last night, man. Where the hell were you?"

Sam didn't take his eyes from Lukas, who had taken a step back, sensing intent maybe. No way this thing gets one over on Dean, especially when he was expecting it. What the hell had happened? "I was busy."

"What was that suit so worried about?" Ruby asked, one hand coming to rest on Sam's side, trying to guide him back to her, difficult to ignore the animosity in the air.

He was in no mood for that. He recognized his anger when it came; he'd had a lot of practice over the years. For their father it had always been hot and fast, for Dean a slow burn, flaring up during his brother's more outrageous behaviors. But for others, for things that ought not to be bothering humanity, Sam's anger was deep and abiding. It was present in him as much as his intellect and his drive.

Lukas, ashen face tense, smiled slowly, not showing his teeth. He looked ill, and Sam had no idea what that meant. "It's okay. I have business with Sam." He slid his frigid attention to Sam, and for a moment all Sam saw was hunger and want. It looked human enough right now, but it was nowhere near human.

Maybe four yards, that's all Lukas would give him. State police. Television cameras. Smart. It didn't matter how sharp his blade was, he wasn't going to be able to use it here. "Where," Sam growled, hands balled at his side, "is he?"

The smile again, still sickly. And Lukas scratched his stomach leisurely, calloused and broken fingers their own kind of sharp. "You want to kill me. I know that."

Sam wouldn't be goaded, he had too much experience with being angry. Maybe not with being this scared at the same time, but he shoved that down hard. "I asked you a question."

"You kill me, and you'll never see him again. He dies with me." The fingers drifted over the Wolf's chest, and down to his belly again, trailing patterns. Lukas closed his eyes, angled his face away from Sam. Enjoying himself.

_Jesus Christ._

"So help me god," Sam whispered, unsure what he could threaten that would be enough.

Lukas glanced up, a sheen of sweat making him look basted. "Funny thing is, I'm still hungry. It's never," and he paused for the right word. "It's never enough."

Despite what Sam just grasped, what he just _understood_, he forced a smile. Dean was all sharp angles and prickles and jags, nothing soft or safe about him. He was also broken, yes, in a fundamental way that Sam was coming to recognize, but smashed glass could inflict horrible damage all the same. "He doesn't taste so good now, does he?"

And knew from the way Lukas turned away that he was right. He took a shaky breath, feeling a little ill himself, and so alone.

_Inside an abandoned garage that smelled of piss, a loaded gun in his hand, watching and waiting, alone. Dark shadow too big to be Dean – suddenly Dad, and coughing and tears and finally, Dean in the Impala, outside._

Dad wasn't coming this time.

He heard his name being called and Tommy trotted to his side, pointing to the company trucks where someone in a sweatshirt with a medley of bald eagles on it was waving to him. Oh, god, what now? And looked back, only to see Lukas walking away, body heavy, no lightness in him, no speed. Then around to Ruby and Astrid. He didn't care how insane it sounded.

"Don't you let him near you, Ruby," he said, edging down to the roadside, where a makeshift parking lot had been claimed from the forest. "He's dangerous. Believe me."

Twenty minutes later, he was back on the cut block. Dave had radioed; they'd found Dean's chainsaw in the underbrush. It had lodged in a hollow beside an old stump, and Sam approached the scene with trepidation, worried that the more he looked the more he'd find. Parts, isn't that what both Dean and Dave had said about the camp's cook from ten years ago? The others had just disappeared, but that woman had been shredded to bits.

"I'm calling search and rescue," Dave said to Stanley, who resigned himself with a weary nod.

"Dave," Sam looked at the chainsaw; unremarkable. A way to end the Wolf's life and apparently Dean hadn't been able to do it. _Why?_

Goodenuff looked up and Sam jerked his head: let's talk over there.

"Don't call it in just yet," Sam told him softly. A waste of time, first of all. But more importantly – "Dean's got a warrant out on him. Why do you think he wanted to be paid under the table?"

A measure of Dean's reputation that Dave didn't look surprised in the least. He nodded. "You think he wandered off, maybe to avoid it?" Yes, that's exactly the sort of thing Dean would do. Sam wished he could believe it, wished that was a story he could tell himself.

"It's possible." He clapped Dave on the shoulder. Dean had trusted this guy, this old friend, who knew Dean well enough to know he was just the sort to fake his own death.

Too bad it wasn't the truth, not this time.

Dave bit his lower lip. "What about the scream?" Sam knew to leave Dave room; he'd fill in his own blanks. Most people did. Most people needed things to make sense and would make up what excuse they needed. "He might have done that to make us think an animal had got him?"

Sam shrugged noncommittally and told Dave he wanted to look around a little more. The boss picked up the chainsaw, face still worried. Even if Dean had disappeared on purpose, it was dangerous country.

The clearing was pretty big, dominated by the enormous stump. It was covered in moss, except for one long divot, recently scraped away, cedar red underneath, crumbling, rotten. Around the stump, deep slash, the forest coming back after the cut. _Nature abhors a vacuum_. Recently cut saplings lying like fallen soldiers around the stump. Something wasn't right.

Sam imagined standing on the stump. He imagined falling from the stump, calk boots taking out a skidding cushion of moss. Sam turned very gradually, eyes narrowing. Three strides and he bent down.

A sapling cut at an angle a foot or so from the forest floor, tip sharp as a spear. Covered in blood. Without hurry, Sam reached out and touched it with a sure finger. Tacky, maybe because the air was so dense with moisture. A couple of fibers stuck to the stake, and he pried them off: blue thread, white thread. Someone's clothing.

He came to his feet slowly, thinking. Something had happened here but he wasn't sure what.

--

TBC

**a/n:** I TOTALLY had the Great Escape reference before The Usual Suspects aired. Just ask the betas.


	9. Bait & Switch

**Red Chapter 9**/Bait & Switch

**Description**: Gen, PG-13, WIP, penultimate chapter. Okay, Little Red Riding Hood? Think about it, the story's all about sex and violence, like most good fairy tales. Except with a whole lot more swearing.

**Disclaimer**: Blahblahblah, Kripke, blahblahblah.

Knock knock. _Who's there?_ Beta. _Beta who?_ Beta thank Lemmypie and jmm0001, because they do all the work.

**STF:** In Washington State, Dean's been eaten by a Big Bad Wolf (hey, it happens). Sam's trying to figure out how to get him back. Oh, and 'eaten by a Wolf' really looks like sitting inside a Cadillac that holds a lot of dirty secrets. C'mon, you remember.

--

He'd told himself it was a good idea, taking the ride. After all, he had needed to get back down the mountain after collecting his stuff and dropping off the crew chief's truck, and Goodenuff Dave and Brent had offered. They'd even said they'd go fast, which had seemed like an added bonus, an extra knock won from a vintage pinball machine.

The third time Sam's head banged against the truck's rear window, he questioned his sanity. He began to question a lot of things. Taking a ride with these guys was tantamount to bungee jumping with dental floss. The truck wouldn't have passed a safety inspection anywhere in the continental United States – hell, maybe not even in Mexico – and the road was an unwinding roll of greased Saran Wrap, and Dave had already admitted that he needed a new prescription for his glasses, which he'd forgotten at the logging camp anyway.

The music was loud and sounded so much like something Dean would like, that Dean would _love_, that Sam bit the inside of his mouth just to keep from losing it, one way or another.

Obvious that Goodenuff knew these roads like the back of his hand. Equally obvious that both he and Brent had been drinking steadily this afternoon as logging ground to a halt and Dean failed to show up hour after long hour. As soon as Sam had jumped into the back of the cab, Brent had passed him a can of beer, and Sam had spilled lots of it already. _And you know? I don't give a shit._

The truck's tape machine suddenly spoke an Inuit dialect unknown to Sam, and both loggers swore blue, Brent jabbing the eject button with an excited finger.

"Shit!" Brent spat, and the tape shot out the slot like a bunny at the dog track, trailing a ribbon of plastic. Brent yanked it roughly, snapping the tape, stared at it, then nonchalantly tossed the cassette out the window. Sam turned in his seat to watch it bounce away into the falling dark.

A little surreal, everything, Sam thought. Mostly because the homicide humming along his veins wasn't allayed in the least by a little jolt of alcohol, and he recognized what he was gearing up for. A killing, taking something out. Behind this, beyond it, was worry for his brother, but he couldn't give in, wouldn't, because Sam knew worry like that turned into terror, would take over everything, and they couldn't afford it right now.

Later. He would think about Dean being gone later, if it came to that.

At his feet, the same bundle of things that he'd brought up with him from Seattle: tent, tarp, sleeping bag, boots, a backpack full of clothes. In his pocket was an envelope containing several hundred dollars, his payout. One way or another, he'd planted his last tree. He had other work now.

The machete was in his daypack on the seat beside him, and that was all that mattered.

Brent found other music, worse than Sam could have imagined – _More Than a Feeling_ blared out the speaker right next to him. The truck had a shockingly good sound system. Brent left his window open, the early evening air surprisingly temperate after the sunny day's late-May warmth, and set his elbow on the ledge, fingers strumming an imaginary guitar. The smell of hops permeated the cab, more so than the sweat of work clothes discarded on the bench, or the cedar chips nestled between coils of oiled cable on the floor. The brewery reek might have been because Sam was _wearing_ half his beer, of course.

"You okay back there, Winchester?" Goodenuff shouted over the wind and the cowbells.

They looked like some modern version of pirates, Sam had decided when the loggers had pulled into the treeplanter's tent city. Most of the planters had still been in town, or heading back up, and Sam had been glad that introductions hadn't been necessary. Acting as go-between had been tough enough with Dean and Ruby in the Aberdeen restaurant; he couldn't imagine what idiocy someone like Brent Proctor would dream up when faced with a dozen fully tricked-out planters rolling in from a twenty-four hour bender.

"Fine," he called out, not really looking for conversation.

Lukas hadn't been at the planter's camp; Sam hadn't been expecting it, hadn't anticipated his luck to run that hot twice in one day. Lukas was holed up somewhere. Not that it mattered, he reasoned, staring over Goodenuff's shoulder at the wildly tilting landscape in the headlights. They were going too fast. _I don't care, step on it, Goodenuff._

It didn't matter if Sam found Lukas because Sam couldn't kill Lukas. He wanted to, everything in him, everything honed and trained, all his myriad places that felt love and loyalty, begged for it. Stopped only by his intellect, which warned caution. Monster that Lukas was, he hadn't been lying. He had Dean, had him somewhere. _Kill him and Dean's gone. Think it through, Sammy. There's a way._

"I'm fucking starving," Brent said, popping open the glove box and rearranging some papers, an unspooled measuring tape and a bunch of empty cigarette packs. "Anyone got anything to eat?"

No one did, and Sam realized that he hadn't eaten all day, that he'd filled himself with coffee and rage, leaving nothing to twist around his stomach except sulfurous bile. Then Brent found a candy bar under an axe head, something with a mashed gooey center and they split it three ways.

It left Sam sticky and when he looked at his hands, he realized that he'd left the blood from the stake on his fingers. Done that instinctively, because it was most certainly Dean's and it was blood for the bloodhound. More than that, the blood contained trace elements that connected the brothers, somehow, as if it was a talisman ensuring Dean's continued existence.

The undercarriage scraped against a smooth hump of glacial rock, and Sam bounced so hard his head thudded against the roof, proving once more that being tall was a mixed blessing at best. Brent looked back, chuckling. Dave's attention was on the road.

"Why didn't we get the cook to pack us a dinner?" Brent asked, crumpling the wrapper into a ball and throwing it out the window. "You know, I wouldn't have turned my nose up at a coupla sandwiches."

Goodenuff wasn't listening. Sam could actually _see_ him not listening.

"Even peanut butter," Brent muttered, getting nowhere.

Then Goodenuff reached over, turned down the music, and Sam realized that his attention wasn't on the road after all.

"Lori woulda done it. Remember how she always packed us those sandwiches with the toothpicks?" His tone that said he'd been holding it in, that he didn't want to sound like a wuss.

Brent was silent for a minute, then scratched his sparse moustache, wincing. "Yeah." He glanced back at Sam. "Looked after your brother, she did."

Sam didn't say anything. He knew this already. Not looking for conversation, but still: _tell me something I don't know. Shine a light on him, because I can't see him._

"Sure as hell needed it, the way you treated him," Dave muttered, not entirely with good humor.

"Ludovic scared her more, way he was," Brent retaliated and Goodenuff's shoulders straightened. Sam saw it, marked it. "Gave her the heebie jeebies, she told me once."

"Hope a bear ate _him_," Dave said with feeling.

Brent shook his head. "Nah, he had too much wood-sense. He'd fucking disappear for days on end, remember? Would just turn up when he felt like it."

"What'd Dean make of him?" Sam leaned forward, one elbow on either seat.

Goodenuff looked uncomfortable; Sam could tell, because he kept his eyes on the road. Brent started playing with his beer can tab, wiggled it back and forth like Sam had with his dead toenail, until it snapped off.

"As far as I know, Dean kept clear of him, up until the accident, " Dave finally said, voice low. "But Ludovic...he..." and though his glance flicked once to Sam in the rearview mirror, he continued to stare at the road. "He had a thing for your brother. Creepy as all fucking hell."

In a place where he didn't really acknowledge these things, Sam understood, had already created a hanging file full of Dean-related clippings.

Maybe Brent didn't know this though, because he stared over at the boss in surprise. "What the fuck you talking about, Goodenuff?"

Goodenuff shrugged. "You were still in hospital, all strung out on morphine, Proctor. When we were searching for Lori..." and he stopped, swallowed. "I went down-river, where the old fish weir was?" He took his hands from the steering wheel to describe 'round', like ostrich eggs. "Where the native guys used to trap fish? The shallows and all the rocks?"

Brent nodded; he knew the place. Sam listened hard, hearing the creeping horror under Dave's words.

The boss continued. "It's where Ludovic must've made camp, a few of his things around, a shelter, some gear. I wasn't looking to steal anything." Like Brent or Sam was accusing him. Must be Catholic. "But I looked inside his stuff, just to see, right?" The truck labored a bit and Dave dropped it into a lower gear. "And he had...you know a bunch of Dino's things, stuff that I knew was his. But weird shit."

"Weird?" Sam repeated, testy. Fearful. This covetousness was a decade old, at least, older, and hadn't changed. Had gotten stronger over the years, the feeling of rightful possession full-blown now.

Suddenly: _A diner, slacker kids, free food, and Sam's big brother in front of a tall man, not moving. Struck still as stone, unable to get out of his way. And the man looming over Dean, wanting him so badly even Sam knew it. Known it was wrong, bad and just wrong, even without knowing what it was._

It had started then. Sam didn't remember his face, not exactly, but he knew it was Lukas, or Ludovic, or whatever he was, the Wolf, then and then and now.

Dave shrugged. "Half eaten things that I'd last seen Dino chewing on. A washcloth of his, his thermos lid. An old sock and some hair. His toothbrush." Dave's face was pale. "It was fucking strange shit, all put together like they were treasures or something. Like a rat's nest."

_Fetishes_, Sam thought. _Trophies_. He was going to kill this thing. He'd get Dean back and he'd ruin this creature beyond the ability of anything to fix, demon or necromancer or god almighty himself.

"Sorry," Goodenuff murmured, glancing at Sam. "You probably didn't need to hear that. God only knows your brother hated the SOB, wanted to kill him that last night, Lori told me."

"Probably why," Brent offered. "I'd want to kill any asshole who stole my toothbrush."

And then they rounded a steep bend that dipped to the valley floor, and Sam could hear a liquid river hush out the driver's side window. Lights ahead, the protest camp, where Sam had asked to be dropped off.

Something was happening.

Same lights as before, the bright ones ready for broadcast. More than that. Police lights, red and blue, flashing through the trees like a third kind of close encounter. Goodenuff and Brent fell into a loaded silence, and pulled up well short of the action, where there was still room to park the truck by the side of the road.

Sam pushed his way through the reporters, going toward the sound of shouting, leaving Goodenuff and Brent behind. His gear remained in the truck, but he brought the daypack. Until this was over, it stayed close.

The air was gentle and still, the rush of water near, the boom of wheels over the bridge as the protestors allowed a loaded logging truck to cross without hindrance. They were occupied by another problem, Sam found out. They were excited and fearful and angry.

Astrid told him, hard face plague-serious, eyes not calm at all.

"She's gone," were the first words out her mouth and the only ones needed.

--

Every so often, a wind picked up, the car leaned, and Dean would glance unhurriedly out the window. Usually it was nothing, but on three occasions, he'd seen a flash of retinal reflection, a distant animal catching headlights on an open highway. Checking him out.

In complete quiet, he'd slowly taken apart his watch using only his fingernails and the sharp edge of his pendant, put the springs and tiny screws back together, and wondered if it would still work in the real world. Sit-ups relieved some of the boredom, but he noticed a pulling sensation – not pain, precisely – in his side. He looked, and noticed bloodless tearing, felt ill. Push-ups were better, were all about upper arm strength, and he could manage those. No way to stand up, though, and he tried not to think about standing, because that made the Cadillac's interior feel just a little smaller than before.

He had, of course, considered the obvious, the way all men and maybe all women relieved boredom when they were alone. Under really normal circumstances, he would have been hard-pressed not to engage in a little autoeroticism. He'd unbuttoned his fly more than once, in fact. But the thought of being watched, of sitting in this car like he was in a peepshow, and giving it away like that, of giving _himself_ away like that, even for three minutes, killed any desire, squashed it flat. World's coldest shower.

Every so often, there was a whimper outside and it was the sound that gave him the most satisfaction. _Hope you choke on it, sucker_, he thought with a thin smile. He took off his work shirt and ripped it into strips, braided them around the steering wheel. Undid his effort and retied it a different way.

_No wonder crazy people do macramé_, he thought, but didn't let his laugh escape.

The growl was the worst, not because he was afraid of fighting the thing – it would have been a diverting piece of action, quite frankly – but because the barking growl was so sudden and so close it jump-started his heart like a defibrillator. The car rocked violently, throwing Dean to the side as something hard thumped against the driver's side door, a sound loud enough to make Dean glad the car wasn't equipped with side impact air bags.

Breath suddenly sharp and irregular, Dean sat up, looked outside.

Nothing. Gone, and with it, whatever the Wolf had been wanting at that point.

_Wants me to talk. Wants my voice, my attention. My attention_, he repeated to himself.

He couldn't have said how much time passed between the angry Wolf growl and the white light.

Hours? Maybe, hard to tell. He hadn't slept at all, hadn't felt like it. Not even nodding off, or heavy eyes. Not so much as a yawn. Lots of lounging. He'd stretched out in the front seat again, somehow knowing this was his territory, had taken off his socks so he could press his warm feet against the cool glass of the passenger side window, liking the pattern he saw when he took his feet away quickly. A reminder that he had warm blood, that he was alive.

Without warning, the whole car filled with white light, source unknown, diffuse, blinding, so abrupt and soundless that Dean didn't have time to react in any way. It came from inside the car, cast no shadows, washed the interior to a glowing indistinct box, painful in its intensity.

_Oh, thank god,_ Dean thought. _Something new_.

As suddenly, the light vanished, and the car plunged into inky blackness, the empty soundless void replaced with a high-pitched, hysterical screaming that went on and on.

--

This time, Sam had his own calk boots, didn't need to borrow Dave's. No one was paying attention to the granny right now, the police had apparently already sent someone up to get her statement and now she was left like floating detritus at the site of a shipwreck.

Everyone was clustered around Ruby's tree – the _spruce_, Sam corrected himself as he slid one hand around a high cedar branch and hauled himself up. The spruce where Ruby had chained herself only last night. Fewer than twenty-four hours ago. He tried not to think of it, of the swinging, empty chains, the lack of _person_.

The dull space within him that had contained only inarticulate rage and caffeine suddenly coalesced into an unmet need to hunt. He was all over the place, he knew that, was sliding around his own anger like Dave's truck slewing down the mountainside. And he couldn't help it; he had nothing, just need and rage. He'd confronted Lukas, for fuck's sake and it had changed _nothing_.

Eileen had a view and everyone had forgotten about her in the mess of protestors and company media relations reps and cops and reporters. Two big local police were questioning Astrid, asking her about Ruby's mental state, like she'd just forgotten where she was and had wandered off. Maybe that's what it looked like to them. Missing protestors weren't exactly a priority with the cops; the authorities were more concerned with the activists that stuck around.

Sam planned ahead three moves, which wasn't at all easy in the dark, but he could see where he was going because Eileen had some sort of lamp on, an orange glow filtering down through the cedar fronds. Breathing hard, he turned his head to see across the river, already gaining a bit of a view from only being twenty feet up. A treeplanting truck wove and bobbed up the road toward the protest camp. It slowed as it came over the bridge, stopped on the far side. On any other night, it would have been difficult to see, but there was so much light from the news crews and cops that Sam could see Tommy and Theresa get out of the truck, Lorenzo following more slowly, none of them exactly walking in a straight line.

He glanced up, and realized it was harder climbing a tree in the dark, especially if he made a habit of staring straight into a network klieg light and got dazzled as a rabbit on a road.

"Who is it?" a sharp voice called from above.

Wary.

"It's Sam Winchester," he called back. "I was up before."

A pause, a scurry of movement. "Be careful," Eileen advised and Sam took her seriously.

Five minutes, a scrape, one false hold that almost ended him, and Sam was standing on the same branch he had before; a camping lantern hung from a snapped twig and Eileen dropped her sewing on her lap and held out a half sandwich like she'd been expecting him. She had a jean jacket in her lap; she'd been embroidering a peace symbol and white dove on the back of it. In the warm light, the lines on her face seemed to have been applied with paint, her small eyes blinked round, gray hair sticking out in various directions from under her floral hat. Her mouth was clamped shut, worried.

"What are they doing down there?" she demanded. Sam wondered if she'd been a schoolteacher.

Sam grabbed a higher limb, tested it, and settled on the same branch as Eileen, distributed his weight across it and a slightly lower one. He took the sandwich in one hand, and she would see it in his eyes, he knew, how hungry he was and how grateful.

What the fuck were all those people doing down there? Running around scared, not believing what was in front of them, fabricating pat answers to impossible questions. A girl had vanished into thin air.

Dean was one thing, was a moving target always, was the fucking Trojan Horse of prey. But Ruby? Ruby was an innocent, and she had done nothing, had been chosen for malicious reasons only. Lukas knew she'd give him no sustenance whatsoever and he'd still done it. _He takes the girls because he's been denied_. So Dean was somewhere, resisting. And that was good news. But it meant that Lukas had taken Ruby to punish Dean. _Some weak-assed shit, Lukas. Taking away my sorta maybe coulda-been girlfriend because you know what hurts me hurts Dean. Why not go for me? Coward._

"I don't know exactly," Sam replied, stuffing a mix of alfalfa and nut butter and spelt bread into his mouth, talking around it. Manners didn't seem to matter so much fifty feet up with a Wolf roaming around, culling the protest herd. "Asking a lot of the wrong people the wrong questions, I think. You saw it again, didn't you? The same thing that took the other girl."

Eileen was frightened, Sam knew that right away, could tell from the concentration she was putting into her embroidery, outlining the white dove with an olive branch in its mouth. Dove, Greek symbol of renewal, from the Ark, flood's over, peace, Holy Spirit. He wondered if it continued to give her comfort now. Eileen paused between one stitch and the next, white thread wound round one finger, long sharp needle poised, perhaps judging him. "You're open to all sorts of ideas, aren't you?"

Not what he'd been expecting. He smiled a little, then nodded. "I've seen some strange things, ma'am."

She kept his stare, matched it. "You believed me before, when Heather went missing. About the shadow and the rasping voice. You're a logical boy, but without blinkers. I knew I liked you." Back to the embroidery, the quicksilver flash of needle, the blur of hand and string.

He looked away, embarrassed. "Oh, I have blinkers," he said softly. Paintball and free burgers and everything else that Sam had received as truth from Dean because it was easier to accept that than to look underneath. A moment, then he crammed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth, brushed crumbs from his chest, wished he didn't smell so much of dying trees and beer.

"Ruby, she's your girl, isn't she?"

Put that way, it sounded strange. He smiled sadly. "No." He looked away at the lights below. "She's her own. But she's gone and it's my fault." He hadn't meant to say that, and all the anger, sloshing around like red wine in a perforated wineskin, drained from him. Suddenly, all that was left was worry and guilt and sadness. It tapped into a larger reservoir, the one that pooled the loss of beloved women on the ceiling, burning for his sake. He held still, alone and grasping these truths.

She put down her threadwork. Her eyes filled and they sat in silence for a long time. Finally, Eileen sighed and Sam met her owl gaze. "It was a man..." she struggled to explain and Sam could save her from that, at least.

"I know. The one I saw from here last time."

Eileen's hand shook as she reached out, fingers tough and calloused. They were hard, working hands but they enclosed Sam's with care. Her grasp was warm and Sam squeezed back, suddenly overwhelmed. "It wasn't a man."

He nodded, voice thick. "I know that too."

She released him and sat slowly back. He heard the breath she took. "I have sheep at home."

Sam looked up, surprised again. Eileen was a surprising old lady. He must have had some expression on his face, warmed by the amber glow of the lantern, fifty feet up a tree in a valley where something evil walked among them. The night was full of danger and he couldn't see much beyond their circle of light, and somewhere out there, in the dark... _Dean_, Sam thought, the word shafting through him, arrow-straight.

Eileen smiled grimly. "Bear with me," she implored, but with steel; she knew what she had to say would do him some good. A mother with a spoonful of awful-tasting cough syrup. "I keep sixty acres on the north end of the peninsula. Some of it's farmland, but most of it I keep wild, a salmon stream, some reclaimed wetland. You know." Her eyes were penny bright. "I have about thirty sheep. Every so often we get a bear or a cougar. More often, it's stray dogs, sometimes even my neighbor's dogs, roaming around in a pack."

Sam nodded, intent. A slight wind picked up and the branches moved. This time, Sam wasn't alarmed. He had a good grip on his branch and his balance was solid. The treeclimber's equivalent to sealegs.

"Dogs do that sometimes, have to follow their instincts. Doesn't mean I like losing sheep to them."

Sam cleared his throat. "So what do you do? To protect the sheep?"

Eileen nodded her head once; yes, he'd asked the right question, the smart question. "I have a donkey."

Sam stared, nonplussed. Keep an open mind. Blinkers off. "A donkey?"

"Donkeys are powerful animals, Sam. They have sharp hooves and they're brave and they have a protective streak in them like you wouldn't believe. Protectors, not predators. All you have to do is introduce a donkey to a sheep herd when the donkey's young. The sheep are too dumb; they think the donkey's one of them. The donkey knows better, hangs out with the sheep, but is never a sheep. It protects them from all comers."

Smart boy, always. "You're saying that I'm a _donkey_?" And that earned him a deep smile. "Dean would think that's funny."

"He's a worry, your brother."

_You're telling me._

"Wolf's got him as well, Eileen." It squeaked out through a throat suddenly closed. Anger was better than this, more useful.

Eileen took his hand again. "The donkey guard is an old wives' tale. Doesn't mean that it doesn't work. Sometimes folk tales are all the guidance we need." More than just stories, lessons hidden in the bottom like a prize in a cereal box. She patted his hand with both of hers and then let it go, laid it on his knee. Picked up her needlework again, waiting for him to catch up.

The wind shifted again and Sam sat for a moment, considering. Remembering fairy tales. He'd known it all along, just needed to believe. "Big Bad Wolf," he whispered. Then he looked up at the granny, and she nodded encouragingly.

He thought of Ruby, how she hadn't asked for this, had a whole life in front of her. Of her shining eyes, and the smell of her hair and her conviction.

Of Dean at thirteen, curled up in a ball in the Impala's front seat. Bloody and beat and all used up. Sam coughing, feverish, imploring over and over, _What's wrong with him, Dad? What's wrong? _Their father's sweaty face, pale green and voice shaking as he tried to get Dean to tell him what had happened, all of them in the car so fucked up.

The fucked up Winchester Army of three in yet another diner, Sam mad because he'd wanted that last week of school, and Dean with a cast, no right to look so morose because he'd been playing paintball, hadn't he – _and god, he had been doing so much more_. Running silent and deep and alone, and he'd jumped up and their Dad had followed him with those angry dark eyes and Sam had just wanted to be anywhere that wasn't there with either of them. Because he would never be as screwed up as they were, but maybe it was catching. Dean had made a phone call, had come back thinking they hadn't noticed and maybe Sam hadn't, not really, not then.

This had to end. He had to end it. Sam's eyes were round and awestruck, and they were certain.

Eileen nodded. The nod released something in Sam, and all his anger flooded back into place, refreshed and clear. But also controlled, useful, and its own kind of sustaining.

When he dropped down to the forest floor from the last branch, he straightened to his full height with more than just the rage that had kept him going now for more than twenty-four hours. He had a plan. And when Sam Winchester had a plan, a purposeful rage, and a lethal sharp blade, there wasn't much in the woods that was going to stop him.

--

As soon as Ruby realized it was Dean, she stopped screaming. Stopped screaming and started shouting. "Where the fuck am I? What the fuck have you done?"

If she hadn't been in the back seat and Dean in the front, he was pretty sure she'd be punching him like a broken time clock. As it was, she sighed magnificently and slumped in the seat, arms crossed. She didn't seem injured, not as far as he could see.

"That fucking Lukas _absorbed_ me." It didn't seem reasonable, Dean would be the first to admit it. "Sucked me in. Fucking fucker Lukas." Her eyes narrowed. "You're in this together? The both of you? So what the fuck happens now? Where the fuck am I?"

Okay, back to that question. Dean waited for her to stop yelling. He licked his lips, turned around in the seat so he was on his knees, put his elbows on the seat back. His body blocked the dashboard light and he couldn't see her expression, which was just as well. He wasn't about to invite her into the front, not when it was obvious she'd just hit him.

"Listen," he said, surprised at how scratchy his voice sounded. He swallowed, worked up a little spit. "You believe in supernatural shit?"

Silence. Their shared breathing the only sounds. Finally, "What? Like fairies?"

"Ghosts. Demons. Werewolves."

He drew back a little as she came forward, mindful of where her hands were. She occupied the center, and he rested his ass against the steering wheel, considered her over the back of the seat. In the soft greenish glow, she looked terrified.

"A werewolf?" Spectacularly dubious, despite the white-rimmed eyes.

_C'mon, not such a stretch_. She'd just said she'd been _absorbed_, for crying out loud. How much weirder was a werewolf than that? He shrugged, just a little. Not a werewolf, but he didn't want to waste breath explaining the difference when he himself was so unclear.

"Oh my god, what happened to you?" She'd spotted his blood-splattered shirt.

He examined the gory and torn shirt, wondered if he should show her the hole through his side. _Maybe later, when we know each other a little better_. Back up with a huge smile. He didn't want to admit how great it was to see someone, _anyone_, even her. "Yeah. A few rules in here, okay?" He kept it short, aware of the wind picking up outside. _You won't bleed. You won't be able to kill yourself. You won't need to eat or otherwise process food or drink in any way_.

"So," Ruby said when he was done, voice low. "We're in a...limbo? Stasis? Purgatory? Is that what you call this?"

"Kinda." What was she, a Liberal Arts major? "We're inside the Wolf. You know how Lukas just," and Dean had no words for it, for that insane and horrible devouring, taking one breath whole and independent, and the next, tucked inside, kept close as a confessional. He gestured helplessly with his hands, nothing coming that could describe it.

It must have showed on his face, because something in hers gave. Softened, got teary. Until this moment, he hadn't realized how truly fucked they were. Even if they just went slowly and silently crazy here, they weren't getting out. He might be able to make Lukas rue the day he'd ever clapped eyes on Dean Winchester, might even be able to take the Wolf down with him, but that didn't mean he was getting out.

Didn't mean she was either. Dean could deny the Wolf all he liked, and another girl would still disappear forever.

"What kind of goddamn gas guzzler is this? Looks like a pimp's car. Is it a Cadillac?" she went on, finding her equilibrium through disparagement, unaware what Dean had just figured out, had just internalized.

Fuck it, he didn't like that word; it was too close to the truth. He started to laugh, thinking of internalizing the truth while the Wolf internalized him. One of those freak birds you could mail order at Christmas – the duck inside the chicken inside the turkey. A turducken.

He should mention it to Ruby, cheer her up.

"Yeah, it's a Cadillac," he said instead.

"Why?"

And there was no way he was going to answer that.

--

Okay, Sam wasn't acting normal. He was acting incredibly freaky. In fact, he was acting like a fucking homicidal maniac, one of those commandos that had been trained to within an inch of sanity and then just snapped at some secret signal.

Tommy giggled, because the idea of Sam snapping was funny. He was so tall and thin that he'd probably make a really loud noise. Tommy waited for it, standing next to Sam, almost the same height. The snap. Maybe a crackle. A pop. Shit, that was funny, too.

Sam was glowering and there were cops everywhere, and Tommy had never seen so much light in the woods. The cops he actually didn't mind, they were only really assholes if you got lippy with them, but they seemed to have bigger fish to fry than Tommy tonight, and if a cop really wanted to get serious with someone who had _issues_, man, all they'd have to do is take one look at Winchester and see that he was looking to fuck someone up.

The authorities were hot and bothered by something else: Ruby going AWOL. Maybe that's why Sam was suddenly Mr. Walking Tall.

Somehow Ruby was gone, had taken off, but that's a girl for you. Change their fucking minds all the time. Yeah, Tommy, you're really cute, you know. Let's share a tent this season, okay? And then all, hey, that new guy? I like how quiet he is. Not shy, though. Just quiet. Then, I think I'll chain myself to a tree. And now? Hey, the Gap's having a sale, let's go.

But not-shy Sam was a big guy and he looked really pissed, which wasn't exactly Tommy's scene. A downer, that's what the big dude was. Tommy told him that, explained it carefully so he'd understand. Used words like _harsh_ and _mellow_ and _bummer_. Words that Stanford Sam would understand.

"Tommy, I need your help," Sam cut him off.

Dude, I'm not finished, right? I'm trying to tell you – 

"You know where the fish weir is?"

What the fuck? Cool. A hike, perfect way to experience a mountain high. 

"Sure," Tommy said, squinting at Sam in the camp's too-bright light. "But put on some hiking boots, dude, 'cause the calk boots'll just trip you up."

The fish weir was a mile up-river, maybe more. Tommy knew the trail well, had been working the Quasilit for three years now. The fish weir was just below the potholes, the best swimming on the river, deep water, smooth stone perfect for laying naked in the sun. Below the potholes, the river widened over the shallow spawning grounds, and the stony bed was a good place for catching crayfish, stank like hell come October, after the salmon run. Dynamite place for bear-watching.

So, yeah, Tommy knew how to get there, even in the dark.

"Dude," he said, maybe a half-hour in, Sam following behind him silently, a dark presence that Tommy hardly recognized. He offered a cube of chocolate, explained that they'd made it themselves, melted a bunch of Hershey's kisses and poured them into ice cube trays, crushed some dried 'shrooms into it, but Sam waved it away, way too serious. "Why the hell you want to go to the weir? Nothing fucking there."

Sam didn't answer, just adjusted the sit of his backpack and told Tommy to keep moving.

--

"He's really cute and all, really. And those dimples?" She sighed, and Dean could see her bare feet as she waved them in the air, that was all he could see of her, but fuck it if she hadn't talked non-stop for the last...jesus, he had no idea how long. An eternity.

Maybe this was Perdition, not Limbo.

"But sad, right? Just those big hands, you know what they say. But he didn't want to fuck me, even though there I was-"

He'd promised himself he would keep it to a minimum. Wouldn't open his mouth. But – "You know, Ruby, I really don't..."

"So, what's the story with him? I mean, both of you? You must have good genes, that's all I'm saying. He said he'd lost someone, but he seems more together than you do. I mean, no offense or anything, but you seem to have a lot of problems with women who speak their minds. Actually, Sam's a pretty together guy, isn't he? Really. Even though his last girlfriend...she must have died, right?"

"Right," Dean said to the ceiling, rubbing his face. He was laying across the front seat, ignoring her as best he could, but no matter what he did, she just kept talking. He hadn't heard the Wolf in some time, but that didn't mean it wasn't listening to every word.

"So smart, too. And so fucking cute. I love a guy with really pronounced hipbones, how you can rest your hand on one and-"

"Enough!" And Dean sat up, looked into the back seat where Ruby lay on her back, feet in the air gently kicking the quilted interior, hair spread darkly on the velvet seats, big startled eyes. "Jesus H. Christ, Ruby."

He slumped against the door.

"Wow, you're kind of uptight, aren't you? Like, for a logger. Why'd you do it, logging I mean? Just cutting and taking, raping the land, leaving nothing of value-"

He rested his forehead against the steering wheel and wished that stasis, or limbo, or wherever it was that they were, had some affect on Ruby's mouth.

--

It wasn't a tent so much as a spread tarp hung over a low riverside branch and roped to four trees, but it was all Sam needed to see. He'd found what he'd been looking for. From this distance, he couldn't make out what else Lukas had there – a dark patch under the tarp might have been someone sleeping in the open air, or a pile of gear.

He knew better than to hope it was his brother and Ruby tied up in a neat salvageable bundle; letting himself even consider that would be to invite staggering disappointment. The Wolf didn't work that way.

Sam tapped Tommy's shoulder, motioned him back behind the screen of a big nurse log.

"Who the fuck-" Tommy started loudly, and Sam hushed him.

"Lukas." A harsh whisper. The Wolf would have good hearing. But it had just eaten, and maybe it was sleeping. _Digesting_, Sam thought with a wince. They needed to be careful, though, because if Lukas escaped into the forest, there was no way Sam would find him again. The one thing in their favor was that Lukas was getting cocky, was enjoying his recent meals, and the Wolf was lazy, thought it had left Sam without options.

Sam had one option right now, and he and Tommy were going to take it.

He opened his daypack and took out the machete.

"Dude!" Tommy backed up against the log.

But they'd be out of options if Tommy ran screaming in terror. "It's okay," Sam whispered. "We're just going to punk him, all right?"

The sky was clear, and the stars spectacular and there was only a faint sliver of moon. The river reflected all this and Sam could see every emotion that crossed Tommy's guileless face, ending providentially at acceptance. "Cool." Rubbed his hands together. "What do we do?"

"Rocks," Sam said, opening his now-empty daypack and pointing inside. "Lots of rocks."

--

"I am so bored."

It was the first thing she'd said in some time, so Dean took notice. He hadn't moved from his prone position in the front seat, had been poking around in his wound, wondered how far he could get his finger in before he hit something important. But even thinking that was just gross, so he stopped. He stared hard at his forearm, squinting. The light wasn't really good enough for what he was attempting, but he tried anyway.

Her face suddenly appeared above him. "What are you doing?"

Dean dropped his arm. "Counting freckles," he admitted.

She swung one leg over and he sat up, made room, fairly sure she wasn't going to hit him. She'd believed what he'd told her, that he'd been eaten too. She sat with her back against the passenger door, facing him, one leg bent, the other dropped over the side of the seat. "I had to get stuck with Harpo fucking Marx. You sure don't say much, do you?"

He sighed. Rubbed the spot between his eyes. It didn't hurt, nothing hurt, but he imagined a headache all the same. "It's what it wants from me."

"What?" Ruby's winged eyebrows drew together. She wasn't being flippant, or provocative, or goading him into anything. Just needing to know. It seemed only fair.

Dean winced, looked out the window, saw his reflection, which was just as boring as the last time he'd seen it. Stared at his hands instead, turned his ring around. "It wants me to talk to it. It...gets turned on by it." He glanced back to see Ruby's wide grin, a beautiful smile right enough.

"So you shut up, trying to blue-ball it? You and Sam, you're a lot alike in some ways. What a fucking tease."

And how she cut to the chase so quickly astounded him. "I'm not a tease," he protested.

"Yeah, you are." And shifted a little closer, one foot resting on his thigh, but her eyes entirely on him.

"Not," he replied, glancing down at her foot, which was now slipping to the inside slope of his thigh.

"Prove it." And leaned into him.

That was enough. He put a hand on either shoulder, pushed her back, heart suddenly banging away like a loose shutter in a high wind. "Not here."

Ruby was nothing if not persistent. "What? You have somewhere else in mind?" Inside, outside, everything was quiet, except for Dean's heart. "It _wants_ you? That's what you're saying? It doesn't care about me, except as a snack, right? We're stuck here until the new moon, you said. Fine. That's a long time and I'm no wolf." She stared at him, hard. "Fuck the Wolf." And she was serious. And crazy mad, and angry mad. Looking for a way to fight back, and Dean had rarely seen anything as sexy.

Holy shit.

"Wait a minute," he said, holding up a hand. _Wait a minute_. Thought about it, thought about tease and block, and promises to keep and to break and getting what you paid for. "Just...one..." Deep breath. Sam's girl, after all. But, still. "You want to fuck Lukas up? Really?"

Then he smiled long and dangerous, mirroring her exactly.

She nodded, and accepted his smile, his desire in all its forms. Sat back against the door, withdrew her foot until it almost didn't touch him.

"You got it," he promised. "But we have to get him where we'll do the most damage. Set some bait."

She half-shrugged, but didn't give him pity, and he was grateful. "Seems to be your specialty."

He leaned his head against the driver's side window, looking out into the endless night of their prison, of their cache, breath steaming the glass to frost and he closed his eyes, conjured up something to talk about that meant enough. Something that would call the Wolf inside his reach.

"This Cadillac?" Dean blinked his eyes open, but kept his stare deliberately unfocused. He wasn't talking to her, or to himself. "Not even close," he started, voice dropping to a whisper, soft as lips against skin. "You hear that? Now, a real car, something that moves under you, that shivers when you touch her, a _real_ car, it's like a long slow fuck, isn't it?"

--

It wasn't sleeping. Sam didn't know what it was doing, but sleeping didn't describe it. He didn't want to get too close, not yet, not till he was ready, so he couldn't see what shape Lukas had to him. But he was there, under the tarp, rolling around and moaning. At first, he'd been quiet. Then, so suddenly Sam had frozen, had laid one hand on Tommy's arm to warn him, Lukas had moaned.

It wasn't a moan of pain.

Shit. And the moan came again and the dark form under the tarp shuddered and groaned, one arm reaching from the blankets, up, then dropping. A bark. Definitely a bark, but followed by the low moan a dog sometimes gave when it was sleeping, dreaming of rabbits. Of catching rabbits. Hell, who knew what dogs actually dreamt?

Releasing his hold on Tommy, Sam was satisfied that whatever was happening with Lukas, he was still asleep. Sam walked carefully along the riverbank, stopped about twenty feet away from the tarp, bent down and opened his daypack.

The river rocks were smooth as cannon balls. Sam picked up one the size of a pumpernickel loaf, dropped it into his pack, careful of the razor edged machete in his belt loop. With one hand he gestured to poor stoned-out-of-his-mind Tommy: _go ahead, pick up a few_. Tommy spread his big rugby shirt like a farmgirl collecting eggs and dumped some rocks in, happy enough. _Just you wait_, Sam thought.

Under the tarp, Lukas continued to groan, short grunts and the occasional humming song of pleasure. Oh, god, Sam didn't like what he was hearing, it was unsettling and foul and just so disconcerting. Tommy actually giggled, came up beside Sam, shirt bulging with rocks. He bent to Sam's ear. "Shit," he whispered. "He's really pulling the pud, isn't he?"

Sam stared hard and Tommy smartened up, looked down to his rocks, but wasn't able to keep the giddy grin off his face. "What next?" he asked.

Well, at least Lukas was distracted, which gave them chance enough to get close. Sam couldn't decide if he wanted Lukas to be a fully-fledged monster when he pulled back the blankets. It would freak Tommy out, but also would make what he was planning to do completely legit.

But whatever Lukas looked like, whatever the Wolf was doing or changing into, that wasn't up to Sam. The only thing Sam had in his control was his own actions. Was his plan. And _that_, he had the stomach for.

--

"I know I don't always get enough time. I treat her rough. But when I have a few days, you know, between jobs, when it's just me and her? I wash her slow and all over. Soap and a soft cloth, one of those chamois, skin of a baby mountain goat, whatever the fuck they are, wipe her down gentle, circle the wheel wells where the dirt shows the most. Hose her down, rub her with a clean towel, then wax.

"When we're finished with that, I usually take a break, just like to watch her, all shiny and clean. Then I open her hood, settle in for a nice long look. Touch here and there, pull a few plugs. See what she needs, you know? Fill up all those empty places. Oil her down. And then? Slide underneath, make sure all the rough roads haven't scraped her raw."

The wind was really picking up now and the car rocked to the side, metal moaning and Dean wiped the sweating window with the tips of his fingers was unsurprised to see a blue eye there, and hair and suddenly the wipe of fleshy tongue. A hard tooth scraped the glass.

He left his hand there just a minute, exquisite held breath, waiting just this side of torture. Too long, and not long enough. His fingers lingered a second longer, and he heard Ruby's soft exhalation, close to a sigh, and her hand was on his knee and he took it.

Turned, met her willing mouth with his, placed both hands on her hips, and only pulled away a fraction to whisper, "_Now_."

--

Sam stood over Lukas, rocks at his feet, as the man, or what looked like a man in the dim starlight, thrashed around. One minute, moans of pleasure so thick it took all Sam's fortitude not to lop off the freak's head.

The next, a howl chilling and cold and needful.

"Shit!" Tommy cried, standing on the other side of the tarp, his rocks carefully deposited on the ground beside the writhing Lukas.

Howling, and not quite asleep, but attention not on them, attention all _inward_. Something that had been giving the Wolf pleasure, slaking thirst, had suddenly been taken away, and this was the howling of a bully torn from a fight, the cry of an infant taken abruptly from its mother's breast, the sound of savage complaint a teenage boy made when the girl in the back of his car suddenly remembered the time.

Sam put one foot on Lukas's bare chest, but the howling went on unabated. _Hold still,_ _motherfucker_, he thought.

A protector above, a predator below and Sam shook the hair out of his eyes, preparing to hold back the darkness, stand between it and the ignorant world, and reclaim what was his. _Okay, Dean, I hope you're ready for this_.

Clutching the machete's hilt with both hands, Sam brought the blade down tip-first, shoving it with force right into the soft spot right between Lukas's ribcage and navel. Lukas gasped, arms and legs suddenly in spasm. Sam pulled the blade sharply down, slicing the Wolf from sternum to crotch and _damn_ if that didn't feel right.

--

At first, all he had to think about was the Impala. Then wove in sex talk, which he was good at, had always been good at, let the Wolf feel it, hear it, and then reeled him in. Think of the Wolf, and talk.

And then, the tricky part, to turn away. And in that one action, to drop every awareness of the Wolf and think only of her.

Ruby's hands went straight to his fly, which was fine, was so fine, and he realized that though he'd been talking to the Wolf, he'd aroused her just the same as though he'd been talking to her. He kissed her open-mouthed, not thinking of anything except the shudder that ran through her and what else he could do that would make her sigh and moan and scream. He had quite the bag of tricks, had collected sexual knowledge through trial and error, through a methodical, careful exploration that would have surprised and humbled every science teacher that had ever failed him.

This inadequate bucket of rust was so going to need detailing when he was done.

He touched Ruby gently and he touched her hard, with a spirit of discovery and a mandate to please. And she was pleased, she was so pleased. A huge pressure was building in him, recognizable, but he wanted this to last, just for themselves, just to lay claim to this awful place, to mark that they had been here and had not been beaten. He could do that, with her, they could recognize and honor each other in the most basic way possible.

So: hands and tongue and buttons undone.

Pressure. He drew away, hand on the side of her damp face, lock of red hair snaked across her forehead. Not pressure. _Pain_. Breath caught. Real, awful pain, and Ruby stared into his eyes, not understanding, pulling him to her and that was excruciating. With a cry, Dean collapsed into her, head resting on her shoulder for one moment, trying to collect himself, the pain suddenly huge, not normal, not right.

She looked up, eyes wide in the green light, face flushed and shining. Her hands, which had been around his waist, under his clothes, released him. "Dean?" she whispered and held up one small, callused hand, dripping with blood. His blood.

And the light was so fast and so white, neither had time to scream.

--

"Holy mother of god," Tommy kept repeating, as the intestines slid out like fish released from a seiner's net, slipping over the deck in a reeking mass of silver. Covering the blankets and Lukas still looked remarkably human. Sam had to remind himself what this thing was. Not human.

And what had he been expecting? Dean and Ruby to come out the belly of this beast, undisturbed? He peered at the carcass before him in the starlight. It twitched, one hand making circles, the eyes still closed. It whimpered, and it _breathed_. Still alive.

"Hold him down!" he shouted to Tommy, as Lukas started to thrash. "Tommy!"

Sam didn't give a fuck how Tommy was making sense of this, but he needed an extra pair of hands, right now. With a lurch, Tommy bent down, pinned Lukas's shoulders to the ground in what Sam recognized as a wrestling move. Fine, as long as it worked.

Sam grabbed one of the rocks from his bag, jammed it way into Lukas's open cavity. Two, then three. Lukas stopped flopping around, started growling. Started moving in a way that wasn't exactly reassuring, limbs a little longer than they had been only moments ago.

"Tommy, talk to him, try to calm him down." In many ways, Sam was very lucky Tommy was high on magic mushrooms, because maybe some of this was looking not so out of the ordinary for him, just a bad trip. Tommy cleared his throat.

"Sam?" he asked once, but Sam was busy putting in rock after rock, shifting a pile of stone, ignoring the offal on the blankets, the smell of raw meat and blood. Finally, Sam heard Tommy start talking about something. Something to do with trees. And planting, and Sam didn't give a shit, didn't give a rat's ass as long as Lukas stopped changing, stopped thrashing around.

Long enough for Sam to unzip one of his many outer pockets, to take out what Eileen had given him, already threaded with white silk last used to outline a dove of peace. A silver needle, because he needed to secure this thing long enough for the rocks to do their work. Once Lukas went quiet – not dead, not that, but in repose, asleep like a volcano slept – Sam was able to work quickly, punching the needle through skin, drawing the length of bloodied white silk behind like the contrail of a jet marking passage across the Wolf's belly.

Sam knew how to throw thread; he'd had practice, after all, usually tried to make his stitches even and small, so as not to fuck up his brother's beautiful skin. But this in front of him was butcher's work and he didn't much care how it looked. All it had to do was hold.

Lukas lay on his back, eyes closed, belly distended and lumpy, sewn up like a corpse after autopsy. Tommy got to his feet slowly and they both watched Lukas's chest rise and fall, however improbable that was.

Sam looked at Tommy, not knowing what they'd just shared. Realized that tears ran down Tommy's face and now, for the first time, Sam was scared, was scared shitless.

God, he hoped this had worked, because he was fresh out of ideas.

"What do we do now, man?" Tommy asked, party to a murder, to something worse than a murder, whatever the fuck this was that they'd done. Sam wished he could take it away from him. One more bit of innocence swallowed up by this night, by the Wolf. Sam hoped it was the last.

Sam picked up the machete again, scared but as sure as he'd been coming down Eileen's tree.

"We wake him up."

--

TBC


	10. Between Murder and Breakdown

**Red, Chapter 10**/Between Murder and Breakdown

**Lore:** Folktales belong to the people, the words to me, the canon to the Krip.

'**Ware:** PG-13, Gen, heaps of cussing, gory as hell, featuring Deansicle and BigAngrySam. Based on Little Red Riding Hood, which was always about sex and violence, so there you go. COMPLETE. And my fanfic friends, many apologies; this has been up for a few days over at my lj. But the fanbot, she has not permitted me to upload any docs. So you had to wait longer than I'd like. Hope it's worth it.

**Beta Love:** Oh, I should gush, but really, you know it all already. They make the world go round. They devoted as much time to this as I did. Without them and their enthusiasm and ideas and research, _Red_ would be a sanitized, happy children's tale. For Lemmypie and jmm0001, then, my collaborators and friends.

**Once Upon a Time in Washington State**, Dean ran into a very bad Wolf who took one look at young Dean and was consumed with desire. The Wolf followed Dean through the years until he finally ate him. Sam, never one to give up, cut the Wolf open, stuffed him full of rocks and is now hoping for the best. Dean, stuck in a supernatural Cadillac with only memories and an opinionated treeplanter named Ruby for company, decides to get his groove back. But then a big white light comes along and...we shall see what happens next.

--

Teeth and spit and hatred: that was how the Wolf woke up.

Prodded in the neck with the sharp point of Sam's machete, Lukas cracked his blue eyes open like eggs for a griddle, his lip curling over teeth too large and sharp for his mouth. His head jerked up, throwing a thread of moon-caught saliva, a mane of gray hair fanning from his neck, arms retracting into beef jerky sinew and then stretching into razor-tipped forelegs.

Behind him, well back, Tommy started swearing, not hysterically, but low and rhythmically, the explicit curses of organized religion. Raised in the church, Sam thought, not moving his blade in the slightest, no matter what happened next. This thing might not eat them, but it didn't mean that it wouldn't shred them into dogmeat.

The Wolf turned suddenly, lupine tail like a club, close-by rush of water not disguising the sound of stretched sinew and bone-snapping and a loose meaty _glitch_ as the Wolf shook out its head, staggered out of the tarp's shadow into the moonlight, belly huge and distended, scraping the ground as it shuffled forward. Nothing human left. Sam stepped back with it, bumped into Tommy, who hadn't moved.

It was huge, the size of an Italian sports car.

"Dude, d'ya think waking it up was a good idea?" Tommy croaked.

Sam didn't really have an answer to that, all he had were folktales, so he turned his arm slightly and the long machete caught moonlight and the Wolf saw an edged weapon in the hand of someone who knew how the hell to use it.

Glint of lunar blue, and the Wolf stumbled, ungainly, perhaps realizing that something wasn't quite right.

"Not so good now, is it?" Sam whispered to it, then wondered why he was whispering. _Come and get it_, he thought, tightening his grip on the machete. "He's not there anymore, inside. He's gone, and you're never going to see him again." Sam hoped to god he was right about that.

The Wolf, still too far away for Sam to take a good clean swing, turned its head to the side. A swing wasn't what Sam had in mind, however, and he stayed where he was.

"Go on," Sam taunted, pleased to see it suffer. He'd never really felt that before; he'd wanted things dead, yes, but for the Wolf, Sam desired an end more elaborate and medieval than a quick beheading.

"Just...Sam, god, man..." Sam knew what Tommy was asking. Just kill the thing.

But that wasn't how the story went.

"Run," Sam commanded the beast, too low to be proper speech, not quiet enough to be a whisper. "Run as fast as you can."

And he took three fast steps forward, the machete coming up like justice and the Wolf bolted for the darkness of a rainforest at midnight.

Sam heard it crashing through the bushes, tearing itself through bramble and salal, through the thick undergrowth by the river. Just going, and going.

The point of his machete came down and rested against a river rock, and Sam turned to Tommy. Even by moonlight, he could tell that the planter was the same shade as wallpaper paste. Without a word, Sam bent to Lukas's things, ignoring the coils of abandoned gut, moving them out of the way with the blade, dreading what he might find hidden in the folds of fabric and flesh. Only cloth and some beaten camping gear, nothing out of the ordinary.

_He didn't have time to collect,_ Sam thought. _Just to devour_.

Everything rocked for one moment, Sam not knowing where the hell Dean might be, everything twisting around too little to eat and not enough sleep and adrenaline leaving his body like tide from a beach. The landscape tilted and Sam jammed the machete into a wind-felled log to keep his balance. He took a long steadying breath, then straightened, not looking at Tommy.

"Come on." It wasn't too far back to the protest camp and they didn't have to be quiet this time. There would be cops there, though, and there was no need to attract the wrong kind of attention. "Let's wash the blood off. Then we find Ruby and Dean." Obligingly, Tommy tripped toward the river, not asking any questions.

A howl ripped the night, already distant. It was full of longing and need and it was the same sound from Sam's dream. Tommy stopped, and Sam bumped into him.

"You think it'll get far?" Tommy asked, meek.

Sam shook his head. "No, not far. It'll keep running until it dies." And of that, he was sure.

--

_Seriously_, Tommy thought, _I should ease up on the psyllicibens, because they are just fucking with my head._ A beer. Tommy needed a beer, which would ground him and maybe erase what the fuck had just happened. What _couldn't_ have just fucking happened.

But there were still smears of blood on his rugby shirt, though Sam had insisted on washing both of them off in the coldest fucking glacial runoff before putting away that big honking knife. All that slimy crap on the blankets they'd left, knowing that some wild animal would take care of it, but Tommy didn't actually want to think about wild animals too fucking much, because that was just some scary shit, man.

What a fucking trip. And Sam, man, it so couldn't have gone down like Tommy thought it might have, because Sam was cool as a flarin' surfer bowling pure tubeage six feet offshore, man, was just stoked for it. Tommy'd never seen anything like it. Had probably _not_ seen it, now that he thought about it, because if what he'd seen was true, then Sam was just like, magic or something, and Tommy knew that although he'd seen some weird stuff when he'd dropped acid or 'shrooms, this was kinda beyond most freaky trips.

Well, except maybe that time in an Olympia motel room when the bedside lamp had changed into a cat, rubbed itself against his face and spoken to him in his dad's voice about the advantages of finishing that physiotherapy degree he'd abandoned a few years back. This time, though? Man, he'd have to thank Lorenzo for finding this batch of 'shrooms, because they fucking _rocked_.

In fact, he was so amped that he practically ran to the camp. Or maybe that was because Sam was running and Sam could move pretty fucking quick when he put his mind to it, yeah, he was a good planter, give him a month and he'd be raking in the bucks with the rest of the highballers, but Sam didn't seem to have his head in the game. The planting game. Was more concerned about...well, maybe Tommy couldn't quite figure out what Sam was concerned about.

Lights were on at the camp, what, was it a party? Tommy was fairly sure that the protest crowd wasn't into partying the same way the planters were, because shit, wasn't it past midnight or something?

There was something going down, though – right, Ruby had disappeared. But shit, wasn't that Ruby right fucking there, still chained to the fucking tree, yelling like the world was coming to an end?

A crowd around her, and Tommy wasn't much into crowds, but Sam, still kinda damp from dunking himself in the river, pushed people away like they were bowling pins, what a fucking tall guy, guess he could get away with that kind of shit, even though one of the guys was probably a cop, judging from the belt and the ridicufuckinglous ranger hat. Tommy followed Sam, more or less because he'd been following Sam for a couple of hours now and Tommy liked repetitive routine if he liked anything.

The law-enforcement officer – no, shit he was with Parks – was walking away, though, shaking his head, saying something about stupid hippies and he ought to do a tox screen on the girl, seemed high on something.

As soon as Sam got near Ruby, she quieted down, and threw her arms around him, tight. Frantic. Shit, scared maybe, and Tommy'd never seen that from Ruby, not in all the time he'd known her.

"Where is he?" was the first thing Sam said to her, and that didn't make a whole lot of sense to Tommy. He looked over his shoulder. The TV vans were all dark, maybe the journalists had packed up for the night, maybe they'd been turned off by a protestor disappearing and reappearing like a bunny out a hole.

Ruby was sobbing now. That took Tommy's attention, mostly because Ruby wasn't exactly the sort of chick who just, you know, _sobbed_, and also because, damn, she was a nice girl, and he still sort of liked her. Despite the fact that she'd been all curious about not-shy Sam.

Sam was shushing her, stroking her hair, then shouted for someone to find the key for the kryptonite locks. Ruby didn't look like she wanted to be locked up anymore, looked like she was going to snap those chains herself if something wasn't done right away. Like a teeny tiny Incredible Hulk. So much for her experiment in direct action.

Her voice was clogged with tears, that mucus-y glottal way that little kids got when they were about to lose it big time. Tommy leaned against the tree, took the key from Astrid, who gave both Tommy and Sam a dirty look. Astrid had perfected dirty looks, had fucking stock in the Bank of Bitch. Behind her, he saw Lorenzo and Theresa. What the hell had he been meaning to tell Lorenzo? The 'shrooms, right.

"Tommy," Sam said sharply, looking at the key.

Tommy jumped, started to unlock the chains. Was close enough to hear what Ruby said, for all the sense it made.

"He was inside with me. And...and he had," she gestured to her side. "He was hurt, Sam, but okay for the longest time and then...jesus, I'm sorry, but he started to bleed again, and there was a flash of white light..."

She didn't even get a chance to finish before Sam turned, let her go like she had some kind of electric current running through her, like he'd stuck his tongue on a nine-volt battery. Sam's face was so white, Tommy was pretty sure he was going to hurl, and he stepped back, not wanting to get hit. Sam shook himself instead, Tommy actually saw him shake himself, nod once.

Then Sam grabbed Lorenzo by the shoulder, bent down to look the shorter man in the eye. "Give me the truck keys."

It wasn't any kind of request. He held out his big planter's hand, still dark with blood not quite scrubbed off and missing a couple of nails and Tommy felt an inexplicable surge of pride then, that Sam was one of them. He was some kind of warrior, had done something that Tommy knew was heroic, even if he didn't really remember all the details. Lorenzo silently passed him the keys to the company truck. Sam ran to the bridge, to where the truck was parked, not one more word to any of them.

--

This? This was _shit_.

This was the worst fucking cosmic joke imaginable. From one fucking fucked up situation to another and back again.

Dean didn't even bother looking this time. The pain was just this side of unbearable, and the only thing keeping him from curling up and rocking in agony was the fact that he had a fucking stake through his fucking side like a fucking kebab at Satan's own BBQ in hell.

God, he thought, looking at the clear sky, the stars, thinking about how he could at least see distance again.

_Bored now, Winchester_? Almost started laughing, but he knew it would hurt too much. _I'll never wish for excitement again. Bring on boring._ He closed his eyes, shutting out the wished-for view, because everything was spinning and he felt sick and chilled and knew neither was a good sign.

He heard owls, and the noise of branches rattling in the wind, which was picking up a little. He tried to concentrate on all these things, because concentrating on anything closer to home was just going to result in him losing it.

So he heard it when it came.

Not that it would have been able to disguise itself, he supposed, big as it was, but he heard it smashing around in the underbrush like it was blind or something, like it wanted to take out as much crap as possible as it moved forward.

As it came. To him. Of course, to him.

Dean didn't move his head and he had a bunch of good reasons for that. Any movement hurt so bad he couldn't stand it, like pulling your teeth with pliers, purposefully jabbing a screwdriver into your eye socket. Also, he'd probably bleed out in thirty seconds if he jostled that stake in any direction. Hell, he might be bleeding out right now for all he knew, might have hit something big like an artery or his kidney or liver or god alone knew what else. But mostly, he couldn't see much in the dark anyway, so what was the point.

Clarification: if he was being honest with himself, he didn't want to see. _Dear god. Oh, god._

Soon he didn't have to turn his head, because the Wolf was there, was a dim huge outline that blocked out stars, breathing like it was the one with a stake through it. But, man, it was fucked up, even in the dark Dean could see that. It couldn't walk in a straight line, it just dragged itself, not even walking now, just dragging itself over the slash. It smelled of death, which was a smell Dean would recognize in his sleep.

It lay down close to Dean, its head near his head, started to whine, sounding all the world like a dog that had been tied up outside a coffee shop while its owner forgot about it over a long cappuccino. Dean swallowed, wouldn't look at it.

_Talk to me, talk to me._

When the whining didn't work, it growled, deep in its throat and Dean closed his eyes. No way was he going inside again, he'd twist on the stake to avoid it, would rather fatally tear an artery than go back. But the Wolf couldn't take him in like before, and Dean knew it; this close he saw the laden belly and the thin thread of an autopsy, and he really didn't know what had happened, but it looked bad.

_Sam_, Dean thought, _oh, Sammy. You righteous motherfucker. You got him._

With an effort Dean would have called heroic under other circumstances, the Wolf got to its feet, threw its head back and _howled_.

Everything in that sound was lonely and bereft, and Dean just didn't give a shit, he wanted it to stop. Despite every excuse he'd offered himself, he gritted his teeth and moved his head to keep track of the Wolf. It was shuffling around in the slash, hacking now, great gushes of blood spraying from its nose and mouth as it stumbled out of Dean's line of vision, somewhere behind him.

_Fuck_, Dean thought, hearing another howl started, but it died into a feeble groan. The Wolf fell over like a tree, the weight of it vibrating the ground like an earth tremor. The force of that fall was what did it, not anything else. It made the stake vibrate in Dean and although he was sure that was the Wolf's death throe, he also thought it might signal his end too, because the entire sky flashed white, and then red, and after that Dean really couldn't have said what color it went to.

--

As he jumped out the truck's cab, one foot sinking into ankle-deep mud, the ground torn and trampled by the treads of large machinery, Sam hoped to god he'd remembered the way, had stopped close enough to the clearing, had given clear instructions over the radio to Goodenuff Dave – _just do it man, trust me, he's up there and he's hurt bad_.

Hard to tell one tree from another at night, but the equipment looked right.

He had time to think that and then he heard the howl. He'd found the right place, because so had the Wolf – and why the hell hadn't he taken off that fucker's head when he'd had the chance?

This was the place, but Sam had done the right thing in following the folktale, even if he hadn't anticipated the Wolf would survive long enough to get back to the clearing. Sam broke into a run, scrambling up the slashed hillside, the sounds of thrashing and growling aiding his way-finding, the whole time repeating to himself that he'd kill it with his bare hands if he had to, and not thinking of his brother, because that gave him no strength right now.

The sounds suddenly stopped – _choked_ – and Sam's breath caught in his chest at a fucking awkward angle but he didn't stop, couldn't stop, just kept on coming, long legs moving through slash like a combine harvester, knowing how to do it even at night, weeks of planting coming to his aid now. The clearing just ahead, and moonlight showed the stump from where he was now certain Dean had fallen, where they'd found the chainsaw, and he knew that Dean hadn't been there then, and was just as sure that he would be there now.

Dean was pale and ghost-like in the starlight, his face a bloodless white, and Sam came skidding to a stop, sliding on his knees like a major league base-runner, one hand hovering over Dean's chest, hardly knowing where to start. He wished he had a flashlight, and he was glad he didn't. Even in the moonlight he could see where the stake came out his brother's side.

One hand on his chest. Still breathing.

_Where was the Wolf?_

Dean groaned, maybe the pressure of Sam's hand on his chest too much, for all it was like a bird's, eyes open, meeting Sam's, and nothing was said. Sam saw right away that Dean couldn't move without enormous pain, was already in agony, his face that complete blank way it got when he was barely holding it together, eyes wide and dark.

Dean's attention flicked to the side, and again, back to Sam. Refusing to talk, but asking him something all the same. Telling him something.

Sam nodded, got to his feet, heart hitting his ribcage hard, fierce as a zoo animal making a break for it, and he took a few steps in the direction that Dean had been telling him to go.

Close against the dark ground, flattening a spray of fern, Sam found a large skeleton. The ribs rested on the ground, not held by any connective tissue, the archipelago of spine ending in an enormous skull, fanged saber-tooth sharp. A clutch of smooth river rocks clustered in the curve below the ribs, gathered almost protectively like a nest of petrified dinosaur eggs.

Sam swallowed, heard the thup-thup of propellers, very far away. From his pocket, he retrieved the flare he'd brought from the truck and he sent it up, watched it go, before turning back to where Dean lay. He crouched down, unafraid to rest one hand on Dean's head, the other lingering over his brother's chest, fingers lightly brushing the work shirt, the heavy belt, not knowing what to do, how to alleviate any of the incalculable hurts.

Except one, maybe.

"It's dead," Sam said, finding his voice. It needed to be said, to be heard.

A spasm shuddered through Dean, and he closed his eyes briefly. "Dean?" Sam whispered, couldn't raise his voice much above that. Felt stupid, and small.

"About fucking time," Dean muttered, eyes blinking open again, still huge. Not wandering now, but locked on Sam. "That thing. Inside a Cadillac, Sam. How the fuck did I get away?"

Sam shook his head, pushed hair out of his eyes. "What?"

"Just you know, after Seattle, long time before I could even look at a Cadillac, even heard the word, it gave me the creeps. You were so sick and we had no money. In that garage, and dad didn't come back and what the fuck was I going to do? What the hell did I have to sell? That fucking thing, what it took. From me."

Still trying to tell him, Sam realized, fighting what had a choke hold on his throat.

"You shouldn't talk, Dean," he managed, though it was all he ever really wanted from Dean, to talk, to say something that wasn't a joke or a putdown. "Save your strength."

Dean shook his head, a tiny movement. "Don't be a fucking baby."

That brought a defiant grin. "I'm not a baby, Dean."

No smile in return though, and Sam knew there were reasons for that, maybe ones he knew, but more likely ones that he'd never hear, and about which he couldn't begin to speculate.

"I know that." A line of headlights swept the hillside and Sam heard voices calling out. Dave was here. Before he answered, he bent to Dean, because he was still trying to talk. "I know that," Dean repeated.

Sam made little shushing noises, and Dean batted away his hand, a spasm of pain flashing across his face. "Fuck you, Sam. Stop with the shushing. Is Ruby...is Ruby..."

Sam nodded vigorously. "Yeah, she's fine, Dean. She's okay. Just kept going on about how you were there with her, and then not and how you had a big hole in you and that's how I knew-"

And Dean relaxed; Sam saw it, saw how his shoulders melted into the ground and the eyes stopped being quite as wild.

"Well, that's something." And he smiled.

--

About five paramedics clustered around him, trying to figure out what the fuck they were going to do. Dave and Brent hung by Sam's side, all the dirt and crap getting kicked up by the helicopter flashing around like shrapnel. If they weren't careful, someone was going to get a freakin' piece of wood right through them.

_Oh, wait. No, that's me._

He tried to find Sam's eyes, but the kid just looked like such a fucking Amazon...no, hang on that wasn't right, they were women warriors, right?...so, no, more like a...a...one of those ones from the Terminator. Kinda Germanic or something. Like he'd happily kill something. Not often that Dean was actually aware that he was scared of Sam, even though Sam scared him sideways, more or less continuously. Sam just _being_ scared Dean, ever since he was a tiny baby, served notice that there were ways to fuck Dean up that had nothing to do with delivering bodily harm. _Wolf wanted to get to me, shoulda gone after Sammy._

Too late.

Smiled at that. He'd been given morphine and now he couldn't shut up, was talking to the paramedics, for all they were listening to him. Was talking to Dave and to Brent. Telling them about the Cadillac and the Wolf and they probably thought he was out of his head and they were probably right.

Couldn't really feel his side anymore, was pretty much beyond feeling anything. Until they said two words, anyway: helicopter and chainsaw.

Okay, the helicopter shouldn't have come as a surprise, since it was making a hell of a racket above, but as one of the paramedics waved down the basket, Dean suddenly put two and two together – _Dean_ plus _basket_ equaled _flying_.

And chainsaw? Well, they weren't going to pull him off this stake like a cocktail weenie from a toothpick. Always leave the invasive object where it was unless you were at an ER with a surgeon for a best buddy. So the stake was coming with him, which meant a chainsaw would be involved.

Dave, after conferring with Sam and a paramedic, went to get his saw, Dean presumed, watching his back disappear in the dark, then was blocked out as Sam knelt down beside him.

"I hope he's got room in the back of his truck for me," Dean shouted into Sam's ear, not sure if Sam could hear him above the spinning blades.

Sam shook his head. "Dean-" he started, but Dean looked away to the basket again, heart thudding, barely able to look at the helicopter hovering above, just beyond the glare of floodlights sparking up the woods.

Dave was back, and his face was gray. In his hands was a small Husqvarna with a light bar, something for precision work. It looked like a toy compared to the ones they usually used. The paramedics moved away, all but one, _the guy who will probably jump start my heart once I start bleeding like a stuck pig_, Dean thought, breath not coming easily at the moment. The paramedic defied Dean's prediction by pulling out a syringe and plunging it into the IV they already had going. _Oh, great, more drugs, okay, that sounds about right._

Sam didn't move from his side. He didn't have to say anything. Couldn't really, because between the helicopter and the sudden spark of chainsaw in Dave's hands, there wasn't opportunity.

Directed by the paramedic, Sam shielded Dean's eyes with one hand, his head bent against Dean's, neither of them able to look at what Goodenuff Dave was about to do with that saw. The paramedic had packed field dressings around the stake, stabilizing it as best as he could, but there was no disguising the fact that a hundred little blades spinning at a gazillion clicks per hour were about to whir through a stick that was resting against artery and organ. No way it didn't vibrate, no matter how careful Dave was.

_The shock alone will probably kill me_, Dean thought, then concentrated on Sam's warm breath, right by his nose.

--

All Sam could see was darkness below, the occasional flash of reflected moon signaling the passage of a lake or river, a ripple in the night, there and gone. That and his reflection, which he barely recognized.

The paramedics had already scrambled like fighter pilots once: Dean's blood pressure had dropped and machines had screamed like banshees on crack and Sam was too scoured clean to actually freak out. Right now things were quiet, though. Loud, because of where they were, but quiet with Dean.

Who looked too pale and too still, his eyes opened just a crack, glazed with morphine. Neither brother looked at the stake, jutting up incongruously, packed with gauze and tape and stuff that looked like it was last used to ship stereo equipment. Sam didn't even know where they were going. Some hospital, somewhere. He should think about insurance and blue cross and money, but none of that seemed important.

Sam crawled forward in the confined space, and the paramedic made room, checked some blinking lights, nodded once to Sam, who didn't give a shit whether that was permission or not.

"Hey," Dean whispered, paper soft, once Sam had his ear next to his mouth. "I'm not going up in one of those fucking things."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I know. It's okay."

"Stop crying. Fuck, you and the waterworks, just stop it, okay?"

"Okay," Sam agreed, same way he'd agreed to the no-fly rule. "You need anything?"

But Dean just stared at Sam, eyes at half-mast, drifting in and out of focus.

Before, when he hadn't known if the Wolf was dead, Dean had refused to talk. Then, especially after the morphine had kicked in, he'd just kept talking, but now Sam saw that Dean _couldn't_ talk, was past being able to do even that.

And Sam could. He could do this.

So when Dean shivered, Sam asked the paramedic for a blanket, because Dean was cold. When Dean's dry lips moved without sound, Sam wondered if the paramedic had ice chips, because Dean was thirsty. And when Dean looked as though he'd just figured out that maybe they were actually in a helicopter, Sam asked if it would it was possible to get some music in here, because Dean appreciated a few driving tunes. Something from a classic rock station would be fine, or someone's iPod, as long as the music didn't suck. Thanks very much.

Sam got all these things. He thought it was because he'd asked politely, but mostly it was because of the expression on his face, which was somewhere between murder and breakdown.

--

Things just stopped for a month.

Three surgeries were required in the end. Every doctor that came to speak to Sam used the word 'lucky' and sometimes 'goddamn lucky'. Sam just took those words and tucked them away, hoping it was the sort of currency he'd be able to spend elsewhere because Dean was a lot of things, but lucky wasn't usually one of them.

Hadn't been this time, or last time, or the first time. It had been bad luck all the way and Dean had been hit with it just the same as if he'd been standing in the middle of a freeway facing someone else's high-speed chase.

So, yeah, maybe lucky that stake hadn't hit anything major, lucky that Dean hadn't died on the helicopter because things had been touch and go, no one needed to tell Sam that more than once. But where was luck when their Dad had been in coma across state lines? Where was it when Dean had wandered into that Seattle diner and come face-to-face with something that would hunt him for years?

Sam didn't feel like being grateful, not when Dean was cut open on an operating table. Not when he had a bad reaction to one of the meds, not when he was too fucked up to make even the lamest jokes, just lay there with those dilated anime eyes. Not until Dean walked out of this hospital under his own steam would Sam be grateful. Hell, maybe not even then.

To no one's surprise, Dave's company paid a fair amount of the hospital bill, Dave and Sam going over what name to use and what numbers to write into the compensation claim and what paperwork it might be better just to lose altogether.

With Dean, Dave didn't talk about insurance, or what carcass had been left on the mountain, or how Dean hadn't been on the stake when his chainsaw was found, and how he had been found on the stake a day later. They talked about resource management and they talked about the fucking little spotted owls and about Dave's absolutely fucking gorgeous wife, and fishing with Uncle G in Puget Sound.

They talked about Lori almost daily, filling up all the long hours of recovery that were required. Sam listened as they remembered her and slowly forgave themselves for her death.

Sam usually sat in, and learned an awful lot about logging and salmon and Dave's wife, more than he needed or wanted to. He'd been there when Ruby had appeared at the door, pale as an apparition, steady calm eyes held just so, connecting the space between the brothers as though there was a new kind of bond to be made. Maybe there was, but Ruby hadn't come to acknowledge it; she'd come to say three things, to the both of them. Thank you. Sorry. And goodbye.

Thank you to Sam for getting them out, and for being there and for not giving up. To Dean for listening. For knowing how to say 'fuck you' in the best way possible, which was literally.

Sam didn't quite understand that, but it was followed too quickly by Ruby turning to him and saying 'I'm sorry' to be anything other than what it was_. I'm sorry that things didn't work out, sorry this had to happen, sorry I was stuck in a bad situation with your brother and not you, because things might have worked out different_.

_And sorry to you Dean, for judging you too fast,_ but Dean was so used to that, Sam knew, that an apology was hardly necessary.

All that was left after that was goodbye and she did that quickly, just as you should. She said she was going with Tommy to the Walla Walla onion farm, hard labor for the rest of the summer, didn't feel much like getting back on the cut block and neither did Tommy.

Who was sitting in the car outside, too freaked out by Sam to come say his goodbyes himself. Which made Dean laugh so hard he hurt something.

The day before Dean was getting out, released early to Sam's care, Eileen came to see them.

They had fair warning: Dave, who had been at a loose end because no logging was being done, not until the protest issue was cleared up, had come in that morning with the newspaper, happy and relieved. The Granny had been removed from the tree; operations could re-commence starting next week. If there were owls, they would have to find some other place to nest.

The expression on Dave's face was complex, to say the least, much of it hidden beneath his big blond beard, smile wicked sharp and wistful at the same time. A soft knock at the door and Dave opened it, Sam still reading the newspaper, Dean contemplating a shitty hand of cards, a game spread on the rolling table between the bed and the chair that Dave had occupied.

Eileen stood straight and surprisingly tall in the doorway, flowery hat and purple drawstring pants, a large t-shirt with some slogan written on it in Greek. Dove, rainbow, peace symbol, frolicking unicorns, something along those lines. Sam looked up, recognized the word 'peace' and smiled. He wasn't going to return the needle, thought that it wasn't the sort of thing you could actually return, wasn't unlike a cup of sugar from a neighbor, or a spare razor from a dorm-mate. It was kinda yours once you'd used it.

"Hi boys," she said, meaning all of them. "Mr. Goodenauer, nice to see you looking so rested."

Dave stood by the door, his smile disguised and unreadable. "Afternoon, Eileen. Good to see you on the ground."

"Tired of looking up my petticoats?" she tested, settling into the chair bedside, rolling the table away as Dean threw down his bad hand. Sam set aside the newspaper.

Dave sighed. "I think I'll go get a coffee. Anybody else?" No takers, but he turned at the door, eyes narrowing, mouth ghosting to a smile. "Eileen...was it worth it? You were up there a long time, and what did it accomplish? We're still going back in there."

Eileen gave him a stare that would have made a demon cringe, all the while with a gentle smile on her face, blue eyes glinting in the sunshine. "I accomplished what I set out to do. It's always worth it. Enjoy the coffee." And Dave was duly dismissed.

When he was gone, she turned to Sam, who had perched on the side of Dean's bed. "You look pleased with yourself, Sam."

He shrugged. "I'm happy we get to leave tomorrow."

Dean moved one hand across his belly, where bandages had until recently covered a horrific wound. Protecting himself and Sam knew it.

Eileen nodded. "That's good news." She stared suddenly at Dean and Sam wished he was between them, for all that he trusted Eileen. "And you, Dean Winchester, did you accomplish anything?"

Straight question and Dean was too pale for it. For a moment, Sam considered frog marching the granny the hell out of the hospital. His mouth opened and Eileen's blue gaze was suddenly all on him.

"You don't need to protect him right now, Sam. It's just a question."

Dean laughed, flicked a warning that Sam recognized immediately: _back off, Sammy, I can handle this myself_. "Between us, we got the job done."

Eileen nodded. "Even better news, then." She patted his hand, the one that wasn't covering his side, and stood. "I have to get back to the farm. Raspberry season, have to get picking for the farmer's market. God alone knows what shape the place will be in."

Sam stood with her. "I'm sure the donkey looked after the place just fine."

"I sure he did," she agreed softly, staring at Sam for a long minute before she left.

--

Too bad it was too damned hot for his leather coat, which was a weird suit of armor, he decided, checking out the lunch options in the town square from the sauna otherwise known as the Impala in late June. Too hot with only roll-down air-conditioning, so hot Dean thought about taking off his thin t-shirt, except that his side was still pretty fucking ugly. Sammy was taking his sweet time picking up the new set of cards from the Mailbox Etc, the gold ones that were so fresh just a month ago used up on camping equipment and hospital bills and medications. Thank god Dean could still fill out a credit application with a winning mix of balls and humor.

_Shit, even on paper, I'm charming_. Smiled deeply at that, sinking into the seat, wishing that it wasn't quite as humid, the leather interior magma-hot and so slippery he imagined himself sliding into a pool of butter under the dash. He ran one hand over the upholstery as soon as he thought it, fingers lingering apologetically for a moment before falling to his side.

_Starving. Sammy, I'm starving. I got a hole in me a mile wide_, and flat out laughed at that, drawing a stare from a kid passing by on the sidewalk, pulling a big reluctant dog behind him. _Shut up, kid. I'm not crazy. Difference between crazy and happy._

Sam stuck his head in the passenger side window, passed Dean an envelope. "Who are we this time?" he asked without much interest.

Ripping open the envelope, Dean slid the sunglasses down his nose, sat up so he was comfortable. Impossible, actually. No position remotely comfortable. "Uh, you can be Dave Gahan. I'm John Mayall."

Sam stared at him hard; what Sam knew about music was a vast sucking hole. Sam understood that Dean was totally jerking him around but didn't know how and that was precisely how Dean liked to keep it. _I have a lot of in-jokes, Sammy. Relax_.

Sam was about to come around the car, to drive, much to Dean's continuing irritation, but they were in Bremerton, just west of Seattle, destination unknown – as per fucking usual – and Dean was so hungry he was about to rip off Sam's arm and start gnawing on it. He flipped open his wallet, shoved his new card in, wondering how much more he had on his David Lindley gold card. He looked one more time at the crisp hundred dollar bill resting in his wallet like a kept token, a reminder, a souvenir. An albatross, a scarlet letter.

It had to go, and what better way than food, really, when all was said and done. A whole lot of fucking food.

So he pulled the chrome handle, eased himself out even as Sam gave him his _whatthehelldean? _expression: furrowed brow, dimples pulled in irritation, hands holding what looked to be two invisible coconuts. That's what Dean always imagined, anyway, and pity poor Sam if he never knew why that particular pose never failed to make Dean smirk.

"Jesus, Sam, I gotta get something to eat. C'mon, my treat. You can gorge yourself into a diabetic coma, I'm buying."

_Like that mattered_, Sam's new expression said, quite eloquently.

The diner wasn't anything fancy, small and slightly eccentric, but the smell was magic and Dean collapsed onto the bench seat, not wanting to show Sam how tired he got just walking here. Chocolate milkshake, maybe a steak sandwich, a little too early for a beer, probably, but it was the sort of place that had homemade pie. None of that strange nitrate-tasting apple either, but real stuff with cinnamon and pastry that flaked and ...

No wait, even better. Salmon burgers. God, he was dying for one. Never really lived up to his expectations, but even if it only came half way to nirvana, it was better than steak. A hundred dollars when both of them were hungry might just about cover it, especially if he left a really, really big tip.

Sam had yet another expression when he sat down across from Dean, and it was one that traditionally put Dean's back up. It was the _youhavesomethingtotellme _expression, bland composed face, ready and willing eyes. _Jesus_.

"Dean-" he started, and Dean stonewalled him. He was out of practice and did it badly, though. Just must have seemed like he'd discovered something stuck to the side of the salt shaker, was addled from injury. Not fully expressing how badly he wanted Sam to leave it alone.

So when Dean looked back at him, Sam was still expectant. "Dude, what do you want?"

"You're buying? What the hell does that mean, Dean?"

"Try the salmon burger," he advised. Oh yeah, that was a good tactic, just look at what Sam did with that. "I'm going to the can." Avoid, avoid, avoid. What a fucking pussy.

When he got back, Sam had menus. "They have salmon burgers," he said, like it was a surprise. _It's Seattle, Sammy. Of course they have salmon burgers._

"Fine. I'll have three of them. Chocolate milk for you?" Big smile, Sam responding to it. _Good_.

"How does she do it?" Sam wondered aloud, setting aside his menu and looking across the room.

Dean didn't give him any attention; he was looking to see if he could get onion rings instead of fries. "Hmmm?"

"With one arm? How does she manage all those plates with one arm?" Sam continued and Dean had no idea what he was talking about.

Onion rings, perfect, an extra dollar. And claims of 'World's Best Salmon Burger, No Lie'. _Huh, we'll see about that._ A shadow fell across the table as the server stood near, and Dean put down the menu, a challenge in his eyes and on his lips because that was a pretty steep claim to put out there.

Died when he looked up, between one second and the next.

Their server had long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, a whole series of piercings along her brow and one in her bottom lip, her bare shoulder covered in one massive tattoo of an axe braided with roses. Converse on the feet, chains around one wrist. One wrist only; she'd thrown her pad on the table, right hand poised and ready to write because her left arm was gone, a stump ending at the elbow. A scar ran thin from right wrist to right elbow, tracing a rip that was at least a decade old. Older.

Most people would take one look at her and think: motorcycle accident. Not Dean, who knew better. A different kind of altercation that involved speed and violence and blood, but no machinery, no accident.

One long moment as their eyes met, neither ever thinking to meet on this side of the Great Divide.

As she sank to the bench seat beside Dean with a whisper of pleased shock, and Dean tapped the table with one finger, over and over like he didn't know whether to touch her or talk, Sam stared at the both of them, not understanding what had just filled the room like the scent of cut flowers.

With a thin smile to Sam, Dean leaned forward and said. "Sam, I don't think you remember Tanya."

And found that he could begin again, that it was allowed.

-30-

a/n: Lest any of you think that I succumbed to your plaintive wails about bringing Tanya back, it was planned from the beginning. Note my sister's Soap Opera Rule #1: No body, no death. Hope to catch up on my reading now.


End file.
